Trust Stamp (IDAI) Announces Action to Address Naked Short-Selling

Trust Stamp (Nasdaq: IDAI), the Privacy-First Identity Company^TM announced that it is examining measures to address potential illegal short selling of its stock. The Company said that it believes certain individuals and/or companies may have engaged in illicit naked short selling that may have artificially depressed its stock price. Trust Stamp’s board will consider a number of options to address this activity including the engagement of forensic experts, as well as working with other listed companies and their counsel that have identified similar trading activity in their shares.

Gareth N Genner, Chief Executive Officer of the Company, commented, “Our concerns as to possibly illicit short selling activities were reinforced when the Securities and Exchange Commission (“the SEC”) exercised its powers under Regulation SHO to place the stock on the “Threshold List” as a consequence of failures to deliver that can in some instances be indicative of naked shorting.

Inclusion on the Threshold List signifies that for five consecutive settlement days there had been a failure to deliver at least 10,000 shares which also had to comprise at least 0.5% of our total shares outstanding. Over the last month, a very large proportion of our trading volume has been short sales and it is reasonable to assume that this shorting activity may have artificially depressed the stock price.

Short selling is not necessarily illegal, but with limited exceptions such as bona fide market makers, a seller intentionally and improperly placing short sales not knowing that they have borrowed or located the shares, or being reckless as to whether they will be able to borrow or locate the shares, maybe liable for fraud in addition to breaches of SEC regulations. In this case it appears from the continuing failures to deliver that one or more short sellers may have made short sales without having borrowed or located the shares needed to cover their short positions.

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