Court Opinion

ID: 9952109
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-19 19:00:56.943567+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:38:04.333006
License: Public Domain

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                                                                   [PUBLISH]
                                       In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                           For the Eleventh Circuit

                             ____________________

                                    No. 22-13658
                             ____________________

        BURTON W. WIAND,
        not individually but solely in his capacity as
        Receiver for Oasis International Group,
        Limited, et al.,
                                                            Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        ATC BROKERS LTD.,
        DAVID MANOUKIAN,
        SPOTEX LLC,

                                                         Defendants-Appellees.

                             ____________________
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                22-13658

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Middle District of Florida
                    D.C. Docket No. 8:21-cv-01317-MSS-AAS
                            ____________________

        Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and JILL PRYOR and MARCUS,
        Circuit Judges.
        WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge:
             This appeal requires us to decide whether a receiver appointed
        in the wake of a Ponzi scheme has standing to maintain fraudulent-
        transfer and common-law tort claims against alleged accomplices.
        Oasis was a $78 million Ponzi scheme masquerading as a foreign
        currency investment fund. After the scheme collapsed, the district
        court appointed Burton Wiand as equity receiver to recover assets
        for the benefit of the investor-victims. Wiand sued ATC Brokers,
        Ltd., where Oasis held accounts to trade in currency markets; Da-
        vid Manoukian, the owner of ATC Brokers; and Spotex LLC,
        which provided the software Oasis used to show investors fraudu-
        lent returns. Wiand alleged common-law tort claims against the
        defendants and fraudulent-transfer claims against ATC Brokers
        only. The district court dismissed Wiand’s complaint with preju-
        dice. It ruled that Wiand lacked standing to sue ATC Brokers and
        Manoukian and that Spotex was immune under the Communica-
        tions Decency Act. We conclude that the district court erred in dis-
        missing the fraudulent-transfer claims for lack of standing. And alt-
        hough the district court correctly concluded that Wiand lacked
        standing to maintain the tort claims, it erred in dismissing those
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        22-13658               Opinion of the Court                          3

        claims with prejudice and should not have reached the issue of stat-
        utory immunity. We reverse the dismissal of the fraudulent-trans-
        fer claims and remand for further proceedings, and we vacate the
        dismissal with prejudice of the tort claims and remand with instruc-
        tions to dismiss without prejudice.
                                 I. BACKGROUND
             This appeal is ancillary to a series of civil and criminal actions
        brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the
        Department of Justice against the Oasis Ponzi scheme. Oasis held
        itself out as a foreign-exchange or “forex” investment company
        that profited from trading currency futures. It raised $78 million
        from over 700 investors and, like all Ponzis, failed to invest those
        funds as promised. Oasis concealed $20 million of trading losses,
        misappropriated $10 million to pay its principals, and paid out $28
        million in fictitious returns to early investors, leaving later ones
        with nothing. We accept the factual allegations of Wiand’s com-
        plaint as true and construe them in his favor. See Isaiah v. JPMorgan
        Chase Bank, N.A., 960 F.3d 1296, 1301–02 (11th Cir. 2020).
            The Oasis Ponzi scheme was comprised of corporate entities
        including Oasis International Group, Ltd., Oasis Management,
        LLC, Satellite Holdings Co., Oasis Global FX, Ltd., and Oasis
        Global FX, S.A., and individuals including Michael DaCorta, Joseph
        Anile, Raymond Montie, and John Haas. Oasis solicited funds from
        investors through various fraudulent offerings that promised high
        rates of return. A minority of the Oasis International Group com-
        mon stock—less than 10 percent—was owned by innocent
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                22-13658

        shareholders from the entity’s formation. Oasis also issued nonvot-
        ing preferred shares guaranteeing a 12 percent annual return and
        fraudulent promissory notes to shareholders and creditors.
             The Ponzi schemers operated the various Oasis corporate en-
        tities as “one common enterprise.” DaCorta, Anile, and Montie
        owned, controlled, and served as the board of directors of Oasis
        International Group, “the principal entity used to perpetrate the
        Ponzi scheme.” Oasis International Group, Oasis Management,
        and Satellite Holdings acted as “commodity pool operator[s]”—en-
        tities that solicited and received funds from investors. The three
        operators functioned under the common “Oasis” trade name,
        shared the same office and employees, maintained a shared web-
        site, and commingled their funds. The funds were held in the Oasis
        “commodity pools”—investment structures set up to manage the
        comingled funds. None of the Oasis corporate entities registered
        with the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission,
        but the Oasis pools registered as financial services providers in New
        Zealand and Belize.
            ATC Brokers, Ltd., provided brokerage services to the Oasis
        scheme. ATC Brokers is incorporated in England and Wales and is
        registered with the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority
        to conduct business involving forex trading. As a registered forex
        broker, ATC Brokers was required to conduct due diligence before
        onboarding potential traders. ATC Brokers’s services allow li-
        censed and approved foreign investment entities to trade on Lon-
        don markets on behalf of their underlying investor clients. ATC
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        22-13658               Opinion of the Court                        5

        Brokers also provides its clients with back-office software, licensed
        from Spotex LLC, to track account and trading information and to
        generate investment reports for investors. David Manoukian owns
        and serves as a director for ATC Brokers.
             The Oasis commodity pools applied and were approved for
        two forex trading accounts with ATC Brokers. Manoukian person-
        ally approved the opening of the Oasis accounts, served as the pri-
        mary representative handling the Oasis client relationship, and
        dealt directly with DaCorta and Anile from the start of the ATC
        Brokers relationship with Oasis. Oasis was one of ATC Brokers’s
        biggest clients and generated “seven-figure” commissions and fees.
            ATC Brokers provided liquidity for the Oasis pools to trade at
        100:1 leverage, allowing Oasis to make dangerously high-risk bets.
        Oasis transferred almost $22 million of investor funds into its ac-
        counts, but “lost every penny traded at ATC in poor forex trading.”
        By the time the scheme was halted, Oasis had accrued almost $20
        million in losses and held only $2 million in cash—which had yet
        to be deployed in trading—in its brokerage accounts.
            Spotex licensed financial software to ATC Brokers, which in
        turn licensed that software to Oasis. Spotex is also owned in part
        by Manoukian. The Spotex software allowed Oasis to keep online
        records of its account balances, forex trades, trading volumes, and
        investment income to be distributed to investors. Oasis also used
        the software to present investors, by web portal, with records of
        Oasis’s purported investment returns. The investor-facing portal
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                22-13658

        and reports of profits were “central” to “attracting and keeping in-
        vestors’ funds.”
             Of course, because Oasis had no earnings, the records shown
        to investors were fraudulent. To conceal trading losses initially, an
        Oasis employee made manual “adjustments” to transform losses
        into reported gains on the investor-facing portal. Spotex, ATC Bro-
        kers, and Manoukian were informed of Oasis’s losses and its con-
        cealment of them. Spotex monitored Oasis’s actual trading activi-
        ties on the back end, and a Spotex executive sent DaCorta hun-
        dreds of emails warning of margin calls, margin warnings, trading
        losses, excessive exposure, or excessive credit usage. ATC Brokers
        and Manoukian were copied on many of these warning emails.
           As Oasis grew, manual adjustments became too cumbersome,
        so Oasis requested Spotex’s assistance in automating the adjust-
        ments. In a July 2018 email, for example, Manoukian, on behalf of
        Oasis, asked Spotex to assist with the automation:
              They [Oasis] are able to see the spread from the
              [backend] account from the API and they are able to
              move it to the client account as a deposit. (currently
              doing it manually) . . .

              The goal is to be able to do the adjustment into the
              client account automatically via FIX or via an upload.

            Spotex complied. It informed Manoukian that “[t]here is a re-
        port available in our web service called Margin Upload Request.
        Using this method, the adjustments can be uploaded for required
        accounts into our back-office.” The Spotex program “assisted” and
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        22-13658               Opinion of the Court                          7

        “enabled” the automation of the adjustments, which facilitated Oa-
        sis’s concealment at scale.
             After the Oasis scheme was revealed, the Commission filed a
        civil action against the Ponzi corporate entities and individual per-
        petrators for a litany of fraud and disclosure violations. CFTC v. Oa-
        sis Int’l Grp., Ltd., No. 8:19-cv-00886-VMC-SPF, ECF No. 110 (M.D.
        Fla. June 12, 2019). The Department of Justice also filed criminal
        actions against DaCorta and Anile, who were sentenced to 23- and
        10-years’ imprisonment, respectively. See United States v. DaCorta,
        No. 8:19-cr-00605-WFJ-CPT (R231) (M.D. Fla. Oct. 20, 2022);
        United States v. Anile, No. 8:19-cr-00334-MSS-CPT (R56) (M.D. Fla.
        Nov. 18, 2020).
            The district court appointed Wiand as the receiver for the Oasis
        estate. Wiand was responsible for managing and recovering estate
        assets to distribute to the investor-victims. He filed an initial com-
        plaint against ATC Brokers, Spotex, and Manoukian. The defend-
        ants moved to dismiss, and Wiand amended his complaint.
             The operative complaint asserts seven counts: aiding and abet-
        ting common-law fraud (count I); aiding and abetting common-law
        breaches of fiduciary duties (count II); fraudulent transfers in viola-
        tion of the Florida Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, see FLA. STAT.
        §§ 726.105(1)(a), (1)(b); 726.106(1) (counts III, IV, V); gross negli-
        gence (count VI); and simple negligence (count VII). Wiand asserts
        the fraudulent-transfer claims in the amount of $21,925,000 against
        only ATC Brokers. He asserts the common-law tort claims against
        all defendants.
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13658

             The defendants again moved to dismiss. Wiand opposed the
        motions and summarily requested leave to amend his complaint in
        his opposition memoranda to Manoukian’s and ATC Brokers’s mo-
        tions. But he never filed a separate motion seeking leave to amend.
             The district court dismissed Wiand’s complaint with prejudice.
        It ruled that Wiand lacked standing to bring the tort claims against
        Manoukian because Oasis was not “separate and distinct from the
        intentional tortfeasors that controlled [it].” The district court also
        ruled that Wiand lacked standing to sue ATC Brokers. Finally, the
        district court ruled that Spotex was entitled to statutory immunity
        under the Communications Decency Act. Wiand appealed.
                          II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW
            We review de novo questions of standing, Perlman v. PNC Bank,
        N.A., 38 F.4th 899, 903 (11th Cir. 2022), and personal jurisdiction,
        Don’t Look Media LLC v. Fly Victor Ltd., 999 F.3d 1284, 1292 (11th
        Cir. 2021). We review for abuse of discretion the denial of leave to
        amend a complaint. Thomas v. Farmville Mfg. Co., 705 F.2d 1307,
        1307 (11th Cir. 1983).
                                 III. DISCUSSION
             We proceed in three parts. First, we explain that Wiand has
        standing to maintain the fraudulent-transfer claims against ATC
        Brokers. Second, we explain that Wiand lacks standing to maintain
        the common-law tort claims. Third, we explain that the district
        court did not abuse its discretion in denying Wiand leave to amend
        his complaint.
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        22-13658                Opinion of the Court                          9

         A. Wiand Has Standing to Maintain the Fraudulent-Transfer Claims.
            A federal equity receiver appointed in the wake of a Ponzi
        scheme stands in the shoes of the Ponzi estate. See Isaiah, 960 F.3d
        at 1306. The receiver has standing to complain about the injuries
        that the Ponzi entities suffered, not the injuries of the investor-vic-
        tims. Id. (“[T]he receiver is not the class representative for creditors
        and cannot pursue claims owned directly by the creditors.”); see also
        Scholes v. Lehmann, 56 F.3d 750, 753 (7th Cir. 1995). So Wiand ar-
        gues that he has standing to maintain the fraudulent-transfer claims
        against ATC Brokers because those transfers injured the Oasis cor-
        porate entities. We agree.
             It is well-settled that a receiver for a Ponzi estate has standing
        to maintain fraudulent-transfer claims on behalf of the estate.
        Isaiah, 960 F.3d at 1306; Wiand v. Lee, 753 F.3d 1194, 1202–03 (11th
        Cir. 2014). At first glance, it might appear counterintuitive that the
        Oasis entities could complain that they were injured by fraudulent
        transfers they engineered. But we can understand that the corpo-
        rate entities have suffered an injury, as Judge Posner explained in
        his canonical opinion, Scholes v. Lehmann, if we understand the en-
        tities as the “robotic tools” of the controlling perpetrators. 56 F.3d
        at 754. When the perpetrators are removed and a receiver is ap-
        pointed in their place, the corporate structures are no longer the
        “evil zombies” of the perpetrator; they are “[f]reed from his spell”
        and regain standing to sue for the return of money fraudulently
        transferred. Id.
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                 22-13658

             Like the majority of our sister circuits, we have adopted Scholes
        and “evil zombie” standing. We held that the “receiver of entities
        used to perpetrate a Ponzi scheme . . . h[as] standing to sue on be-
        half of the [entities] that were injured by the Ponzi scheme opera-
        tor.” Lee, 753 F.3d at 1202 (discussing Scholes and the Florida Act);
        see also Isaiah, 960 F.3d at 1306. After Oasis was freed from the con-
        trol of DaCorta and his accomplices and Wiand was appointed in
        their place, Oasis regained standing to assert fraudulent-transfer
        claims.
            The district court, without distinguishing between the tort and
        fraudulent-transfer claims, erroneously ruled that Wiand lacked
        standing to bring any claims against ATC Brokers. It relied on Isaiah
        to conclude that Wiand lacked standing to maintain tort claims
        against Manoukian, and then cross-referenced that analysis to con-
        clude that Wiand also lacked standing to maintain common-law
        tort and fraudulent-transfer claims against ATC Brokers. But Isaiah
        expressly distinguishes between tort and fraudulent-transfer
        claims. 960 F.3d at 1306.
            Ponzi receivers must meet additional criteria to have standing
        to maintain tort claims against third parties, as we will explain in
        Part III.C, but receivers may maintain fraudulent-transfer claims as
        a matter of course. ATC Brokers’s argument that our decision in
        Perlman raised additional barriers to fraudulent-transfer standing is
        meritless. In Perlman, we affirmed the dismissal only of common-
        law tort claims; no fraudulent-transfer claims were at issue. See 38
        F.4th at 902 (appeal concerned receiver’s claims for “aiding and
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        22-13658                Opinion of the Court                          11

        abetting breach of fiduciary duty” and “aiding and abetting conver-
        sion”).
             ATC Brokers asserts that we may affirm the dismissal of the
        fraudulent-transfer claims on the alternative ground of lack of per-
        sonal jurisdiction. But the district court declined to address the is-
        sue, and we ordinarily decline to consider issues not reached by the
        district court, see, e.g., MSP Recovery Claims, Series LLC v. Metro. Gen.
        Ins., 40 F.4th 1295, 1306 (11th Cir. 2022) (declining to resolve per-
        sonal jurisdiction question not reached by the district court). So we
        reverse the dismissal of the fraudulent-transfer claims against ATC
        Brokers and remand for further proceedings.
                B. Wiand Lacks Standing to Maintain the Tort Claims.
            ATC Brokers, Manoukian, and Spotex argue that Wiand lacks
        standing to maintain his common-law claims for negligence and
        aiding and abetting. The district court dismissed those claims for
        lack of standing with respect to only Manoukian, but we must sua
        sponte address questions of standing for the claims against every de-
        fendant. See Bochese v. Town of Ponce Inlet, 405 F.3d 964, 975 (11th
        Cir. 2005). We hold that Wiand lacks standing to maintain com-
        mon-law tort claims against any defendant.
            Isaiah controls this issue. In Isaiah, a Florida Ponzi scheme de-
        posited fraudulently raised funds with a particular bank. 960 F.3d
        at 1300–01. The receiver sought to sue the bank for willfully ignor-
        ing suspicious activity and alleged that the bank aided and abetted
        the Ponzi’s conversion, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty. Id. at
        1301. But we explained that the Isaiah receiver “lack[ed] standing
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        12                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13658

        to pursue such tort claims” because the Ponzi torts were “imputed”
        to the receiver. Id. at 1306; see also Perlman, 38 F.4th at 901 (affirm-
        ing the dismissal of aiding and abetting claims under “Rule 12(b)(1)
        . . . for lack of subject matter jurisdiction” because “[receiver] Perl-
        man lacked standing”). We also explained that tort and fraudulent-
        transfer claims must be treated differently for standing purposes:
        fraudulent transfers are “cleansed through receivership” as a mat-
        ter of course, but common-law torts by third parties are not. Isaiah,
        960 F.3d at 1306 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
        So receivers who assert common-law tort claims must meet a
        heightened standard to establish their standing.
             The crux of the standing inquiry is whether the receivership
        estate—the Oasis corporate entity—was “separate and distinct”
        from the Ponzi scheme. Id.; see also Perlman, 38 F.4th at 901 (“Enti-
        ties must have ‘at least one innocent officer or director’ and thus be
        ‘honest corporations’ for standing purposes.” (quoting Isaiah, 960
        F.3d at 1308)). If Oasis was an “honest corporation with rogue em-
        ployees,” the corporate entity can complain that it was injured by
        the torts of rogue insiders and their accomplices. Isaiah, 960 F.3d at
        1307 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). But if Oasis
        was “a sham corporation created as the centerpiece of a Ponzi
        scheme,” the corporate entity could not have suffered any injury
        from its own fraudulent scheme, and Wiand, as receiver, lacks
        standing to maintain the tort claims. Id. (citation and internal quo-
        tation marks omitted); see also O’Halloran v. First Union Nat’l Bank of
        Fla., 350 F.3d 1197, 1203 (11th Cir. 2003) (“[A receivership estate]
        whose primary existence was as a perpetrator of the Ponzi scheme,
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        22-13658               Opinion of the Court                        13

        cannot be said to have suffered injury from the scheme it perpe-
        trated.”).
            To establish that a receivership estate is separate and distinct
        from a Ponzi scheme, the receiver must allege the presence of in-
        nocent decision-makers within the corporation to whom fraudu-
        lent conduct could be reported. Isaiah, 960 F.3d at 1307. So if Wiand
        admits that Oasis was “wholly dominated by persons engaged in
        wrongdoing,” and if his complaint is “devoid of any allegation” that
        Oasis “engaged in any legitimate activities,” then Wiand lacks
        standing to bring any common-law tort claims. Id.
             By Wiand’s own telling, as alleged in his complaint, Oasis was
        a singular enterprise entirely controlled by fraudsters. The com-
        plaint alleges that those insiders “operated the Oasis Entities as a
        Ponzi scheme.” DaCorta, Anile, and Montie, the former two of
        whom have been criminally convicted, “owned and controlled”
        Oasis International Group and served as its board of directors. The
        Oasis entities operated as “one common enterprise”—the com-
        plaint alleges that the corporate entities all operated under the
        common “Oasis” trade name, shared the same office, employees,
        and website, and comingled their funds. So Oasis was not an “hon-
        est corporation with rogue employees.” Perlman, 38 F.4th at 904
        (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, Oasis’s
        “primary existence” before the receivership “was as a perpetrator
        of the Ponzi scheme.” Isaiah, 960 F.3d at 1306 (quoting O’Halloran,
        350 F.3d at 1203). Tellingly, the complaint does not allege that any
        of Oasis’s controlling individuals were innocent. It instead relies on
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        14                      Opinion of the Court                    22-13658

        the innocence of six shareholders, who owned less than 10 percent
        of Oasis International Group’s common stock, and the innocence
        of the shareholders of the nonvoting preferred stock. But six duped
        minority shareholders, and nonvoting investors, do not amount to
        an innocent controlling decision-maker.
             Wiand argues that he need only allege the existence of a single
        innocent and honest shareholder to defeat the conclusion that Oa-
        sis was a sham corporation without standing to assert a tort injury.
        But Wiand misstates the operative legal standard: the allegation of
        a single innocent shareholder is necessary but not sufficient to estab-
        lish that Oasis was separate and distinct from the Ponzi perpetra-
        tors. Isaiah explains that a receiver lacks standing if he fails to allege
        that the Ponzi corporation “had at least one honest member of the
        board of directors or an innocent stockholder.” Id. at 1307 (citation
        and internal quotation marks omitted). But the receiver still lacks
        standing when the now-receivership estate “was controlled exclu-
        sively by persons engaging in its fraudulent scheme.” Id. (emphasis
        added) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). So Wiand’s
        assertion that there existed six innocent shareholders is not dispos-
        itive because he failed to allege that those shareholders exercised
        any decision-making power.
             Because Wiand fails to allege that the Oasis corporate entities
        were separate and distinct from the Ponzi scheme, he cannot allege
        an injury to sustain his tort claims. Because standing is a threshold
        jurisdictional question, the district court was not empowered to
        reach any merits question. Bochese, 405 F.3d at 974. And ordinarily,
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        22-13658               Opinion of the Court                          15

        absent standing, “a court must dismiss the plaintiff’s claim without
        prejudice.” McGee v. Solicitor Gen. of Richmond Cnty., 727 F.3d 1322,
        1326 (11th Cir. 2013). The district court was not empowered to
        conclude that Spotex was immune under the Communications De-
        cency Act, and it should have dismissed the tort claims without
        prejudice. We vacate the order dismissing the tort claims with prej-
        udice and remand with instructions to dismiss without prejudice.
           C. The Denial of Leave to Amend Was Not an Abuse of Discretion.
            The district court did not abuse it discretion in denying Wiand
        leave to amend his complaint a second time because he never
        properly moved for leave. A request for leave to amend must be
        made by motion “in writing unless made during a hearing or trial.”
        Newton v. Duke Energy Fla., LLC, 895 F.3d 1270, 1277 (11th Cir. 2018)
        (quoting FED. R. CIV. P. 7(b)(1)). The motion must “set forth the
        substance of the proposed amendment or attach a copy of the pro-
        posed amendment.” Cita Tr. Co. AG v. Fifth Third Bank, 879 F.3d
        1151, 1157 (11th Cir. 2018) (quoting Long v. Satz, 181 F.3d 1275,
        1279 (11th Cir. 1999)) (internal quotation marks omitted). We ex-
        plained in Newton that when “a request for leave to file an amended
        complaint simply is imbedded within an opposition memorandum,
        the issue has not been raised properly.” 895 F.3d at 1277 (quoting
        Cita, 879 F.3d at 1157). Wiand did not file a separate motion for
        leave to amend, and his summary requests embedded in the mem-
        oranda in opposition to the motions to dismiss had no legal effect.
        The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying leave to
        amend.
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        16                  Opinion of the Court              22-13658

                             IV. CONCLUSION
            We REVERSE the dismissal of Wiand’s fraudulent-transfer
        claims and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this
        opinion. We VACATE the dismissal of Wiand’s common-law tort
        claims with prejudice and REMAND with instructions to dismiss
        the tort claims without prejudice.
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        22-13658              MARCUS, J., Concurring                         1

        MARCUS, Circuit Judge, joined by WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and
        JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judge, Concurring:
             I join in full the Court’s opinion and agree that our precedents
        compel the conclusion that Wiand lacked standing to bring his
        Florida common-law tort claims. Our caselaw is clear: a receiver
        “lacks standing to bring [tort] claims” on behalf of Ponzi corpora-
        tions because “the fraudulent acts of the Receivership Entities, as
        the principals of the Ponzi scheme, are imputed to [the receiver]
        for purposes of his tort claims under Florida law.” Isaiah v. JPMor-
        gan Chase Bank, N.A., 960 F.3d 1296, 1305 (11th Cir. 2020); see also
        Perlman v. PNC Bank, N.A., 38 F.4th 899, 901 (11th Cir. 2022) (ex-
        plaining that this lack of standing is a matter of subject matter ju-
        risdiction). I write separately to explain that I think this use of the
        term “standing” is mistaken. The better way to understand the de-
        fect in Wiand’s tort claims is that a receiver does not have a cause
        of action under Florida’s common law of tort to sue on behalf of
        Ponzi corporations.
             The term “standing,” used in its jurisdictional sense, refers to a
        court’s power to hear a case. Federal courts are courts of limited
        jurisdiction and are “empowered to hear only those cases within
        the judicial power of the United States as defined by Article III of
        the Constitution or otherwise authorized by Congress.” Taylor v.
        Appleton, 30 F.3d 1365, 1367 (11th Cir. 1994). “Perhaps the most
        important of the Article III doctrines grounded in the case-or-con-
        troversy requirement is that of standing.” Wooden v. Bd. of Regents
        of the Univ. Sys. of Ga., 247 F.3d 1262, 1273 (11th Cir. 2001). “[T]he
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        2                     MARCUS, J., Concurring                 22-13658

        standing question is whether the plaintiff has alleged such a per-
        sonal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to warrant his in-
        vocation of federal-court jurisdiction and to justify exercise of the
        court’s remedial powers on his behalf.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S.
        490, 498–99 (1975) (emphasis omitted) (quotation marks and cita-
        tion omitted). “Simply put, once a federal court determines that
        the plaintiff has no standing, the court is powerless to continue.”
        A&M Gerber Chiropractic LLC v. GEICO Gen. Ins. Co., 925 F.3d 1205,
        1210 (11th Cir. 2019) (alteration adopted) (quoting Univ. of S. Ala.
        v. Am. Tobacco Co., 168 F.3d 405, 410 (11th Cir. 1999)). It must dis-
        miss the claim rather than adjudicate the merits. See Univ. of S. Ala.,
        168 F.3d at 410 (“[W]ithout jurisdiction we are powerless to con-
        sider the merits.” (quoting Wernick v. Mathews, 524 F.2d 543, 545
        (5th Cir. 1975)).
             Yet, courts over the years have used jurisdictional terms in a
        loose fashion. “Courts -- including [the Supreme] Court -- have
        sometimes mischaracterized claim-processing rules or elements of
        a cause of action as jurisdictional limitations, particularly when that
        characterization was not central to the case, and thus did not re-
        quire close analysis.” Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154,
        161 (2010). The Supreme Court has “evince[d] a marked desire to
        curtail such ‘drive-by jurisdictional rulings,’ which too easily can
        miss the ‘critical difference[s]’ between true jurisdictional condi-
        tions and nonjurisdictional limitations on causes of action.” Id. (ci-
        tations omitted). “Attempting to clarify its meaning and to ‘bring
        some discipline to the use of’ the jurisdictional label, the [Supreme]
        Court has ‘urged that a rule should not be referred to as
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        jurisdictional unless it governs a court’s adjudicatory capacity, that
        is, its subject-matter or personal jurisdiction.’” Avila-Santoyo v. U.S.
        Att’y Gen., 713 F.3d 1357, 1359 (11th Cir. 2013) (quoting Henderson
        ex rel. Henderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S. 428, 435 (2011)).
             In particular, the Supreme Court has walked back the concept
        of “prudential standing,” which we have described as a “judicially
        self-imposed limit[] on the exercise of federal jurisdiction.” Primera
        Iglesia Bautista Hispana of Boca Raton, Inc. v. Broward Cnty., 450 F.3d
        1295, 1304 (11th Cir. 2006) (citation omitted); see Lexmark Int’l, Inc.
        v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 127 n.3 (2014) (stat-
        ing that “prudential standing” is an “inapt” label for many “con-
        cept[s] . . . previously classified as [such]”). “The Supreme Court’s
        decision in [Lexmark] effectively abolished prudential standing
        (sometimes referred to as statutory standing) as a jurisdictional
        doctrine that would give rise to a Rule 12(b)(1) dismissal without
        prejudice.” Newton v. Duke Energy Fla., LLC, 895 F.3d 1270, 1274 n.6
        (11th Cir. 2018). In Lexmark, the Court explained that the term
        “prudential standing” is a “misnomer” as applied to the question of
        whether a “particular class of persons has a right to sue under [a
        particular] substantive statute.” 572 U.S. at 127 (alteration
        adopted) (quotation marks and citation omitted). Rather, that
        question properly asks whether the plaintiff “falls within the class
        of plaintiffs whom Congress has authorized to sue” under the stat-
        ute -- in other words, whether the plaintiff “has a cause of action
        under the statute.” Id. at 128. This is not a jurisdictional inquiry
        because “the absence of a valid . . . cause of action does not
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        implicate subject-matter jurisdiction.” Id. at 128 n.4 (citation omit-
        ted); accord Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 89
        (1998).
             “Much more than legal niceties are at stake here.” Steel Co., 523
        U.S. at 101. A dismissal for failure to state a claim is a merits deci-
        sion and is generally made with prejudice, barring the plaintiff from
        bringing the same suit again. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(b). A dismissal
        for lack of standing, on the other hand, is a non-merits decision and
        so is generally without prejudice and does not have any preclusive
        effect. See Stalley ex rel. United States v. Orlando Reg’l Healthcare Sys.,
        Inc., 524 F.3d 1229, 1232 (11th Cir. 2008) (per curiam); Hughes v.
        Lott, 350 F.3d 1157, 1161 (11th Cir. 2003). Moreover, a court is
        obliged to raise jurisdictional issues sua sponte and must dispose of
        a case for lack of jurisdiction at any time, even after significant re-
        sources have been expended on the litigation. Henderson, 562 U.S.
        at 435. “[T]he consequences that attach to the jurisdictional label”
        are therefore “drastic.” Id.
            The rule in Isaiah is the type of mistaken jurisdictional holding
        the Supreme Court has eschewed. Isaiah reasoned that a Ponzi
        corporation did not have standing to sue for Florida common-law
        torts. 960 F.3d at 1305–07; see also O’Halloran v. First Union Nat’l
        Bank of Fla., 350 F.3d 1197, 1203 (11th Cir. 2003) (reasoning, in dicta,
        that a bankrupt corporation, “whose primary existence was as a
        perpetrator of the Ponzi scheme, cannot be said to have suffered
        injury from the scheme it perpetrated”); Feltman v. Prudential Bache
        Secs., 122 B.R. 466, 474–75 (S.D. Fla. 1990) (expressing concern that
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        if a bankruptcy trustee could bring common-law tort claims on be-
        half of a Ponzi corporation, the corporation’s creditors would not
        be able to bring the same claims, and so concluding that the trustee
        lacked standing to bring those claims).
             This rule does not really speak to the court’s jurisdiction -- that
        is, the court’s power to adjudicate the claim. For Article III pur-
        poses, a plaintiff “must have suffered or be imminently threatened
        with a concrete and particularized ‘injury in fact’ that is fairly trace-
        able to the challenged action of the defendant and likely to be re-
        dressed by a favorable judicial decision.” Lexmark, 572 U.S. at 125
        (quoting Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992)). While
        Isaiah held that a Ponzi corporation “cannot be said to have suf-
        fered injury from the scheme it perpetrated,” 960 F.3d at 1306 (ci-
        tation omitted), this should not be understood to refer to Article III
        injury-in-fact. Indeed, to understand it in this light would eviscer-
        ate another holding of the Isaiah opinion: that a Ponzi corporation
        has standing to sue under Florida’s Uniform Fraudulent Transfer
        Act (FUFTA). Id. at 1302 n.2. Specifically, we said that a Ponzi
        corporation is “harmed” when its “assets are transferred for an un-
        authorized purpose to the detriment of [its] defrauded investors,”
        and that it has standing to sue to recover those assets under Florida
        statute. Id. at 1306 (citing Wiand v. Lee, 753 F.3d 1194, 1202 (11th
        Cir. 2014)). A Ponzi corporation is therefore capable of suffering
        injury-in-fact sufficient to give it standing to sue, otherwise it could
        not bring these statutory claims. Yet, a Ponzi corporation cannot
        sue for Florida common-law tort claims.
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             Neither Florida’s courts nor its legislature can decide whether
        a federal court has the power to adjudicate a claim. “From Article
        III’s limitation of the judicial power to resolving ‘Cases’ and ‘Con-
        troversies,’ and the separation-of-powers principles underlying that
        limitation,” the Supreme Court has “deduced a set of requirements
        that together make up the ‘irreducible constitutional minimum of
        standing.’” Lexmark, 572 U.S. at 125 (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at
        560). Thus, “[f]ederal law sets the parameters on what is necessary
        to possess Article III standing, and . . . state law can neither enlarge
        nor diminish those requirements.” Fund Liquidation Holdings LLC
        v. Bank of Am. Corp., 991 F.3d 370, 385 (2d Cir. 2021). The Florida
        legislature “cannot erase Article III’s standing requirements by stat-
        utorily granting the right to sue to a plaintiff who would not other-
        wise have standing.” Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 339 (2016)
        (quoting Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 820 n.3 (1997)). So, the Flor-
        ida legislature, in enacting FUFTA, did not create Article III stand-
        ing for Ponzi corporations where there previously was none. A
        Ponzi corporation, like all other plaintiffs, must have Article III
        standing to sue for injuries sustained by the corporation. Nor can
        Florida’s courts erect additional standing requirements to prevent
        a plaintiff with Article III standing from bringing a claim. See Fund
        Liquidation Holdings, 991 F.3d at 385. What Florida’s common-law
        courts can and have done is rule that a Ponzi corporation does not
        have a cause of action for such Florida common-law torts as fraud,
        breach of fiduciary duty, or tortious interference with a business
        relationship.
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             Nor are the other theories supporting the Isaiah rule jurisdic-
        tional in nature. Sitting in diversity, we are Erie-bound to follow
        Florida law. See Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78 (1938).
        Isaiah followed the Florida case of Freeman v. Dean Witter Reynolds,
        Inc., 865 So. 2d 543 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003). It was Freeman, after all,
        that “established the rule” cited in Isaiah. Perlman, 38 F.4th at 906
        (Rosenbaum, J., dissenting) (“Freeman established the rule that a re-
        ceiver acting on behalf of a former alter-ego corporation lacks
        standing to pursue claims against third parties who allegedly aided
        and abetted the former alter-ego corporation in its intentional
        torts.”); see generally Isaiah, 960 F.3d at 1306–08 (citing extensively
        to Freeman). In addition to discussing injury, Freeman, 865 So. 2d at
        552, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal was driven by what
        appear to be practical and equitable concerns. The court reasoned
        that it is not possible, where a corporation contains no honest
        member, “to separate the fraud and intentional torts of the insiders
        from those of the corporation itself” -- and that the corporate insid-
        ers would not be entitled to contribution for torts they themselves
        carried out. Id. at 551. Nor, the court continued, could third par-
        ties have a duty to disclose wrongdoing to a corporation with no
        innocent person to whom they could have made the disclosure. Id.
        at 552.
              In fact, the Freeman court did not appear to consider its holding
        jurisdictional in nature. Rather than simply stating that the re-
        ceiver lacked standing, the court somewhat obscurely titled this
        section of its opinion: “The receiver’s remaining causes of action
        . . . suffer due to the nature of this Ponzi scheme.” Id. at 550
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        (capitalization omitted). And, when stating its conclusion, the
        court used the term “standing” in quotation marks -- “[the receiver]
        has no ‘standing’ to bring these claims,” id. at 553 -- suggesting that
        the court knew it was using the term in a loose sense, not in the
        jurisdictional sense. Moreover, in Freeman, the court dismissed the
        claims with prejudice, id., as would be appropriate for a dismissal
        on the merits, not a dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
        See Hart v. Yamaha-Parts Distribs., Inc., 787 F.2d 1468, 1470 (11th Cir.
        1986) (“A dismissal with prejudice operates as a judgment on the
        merits unless the court specifies otherwise.”).
             The rule enunciated in Freeman, and followed by this Court in
        Isaiah and in Perlman, is better understood as a rule that Florida’s
        courts will not recognize that a receiver has a cause of action to sue
        in common-law tort on behalf of a Ponzi corporation. Just as the
        question of whether a “particular class of persons has a right to sue
        under [a particular] substantive statute” is a question of whether
        that class of persons has a cause of action, Lexmark, 572 U.S. at 127–
        28, the same is true of a class of persons suing under a common-
        law tort. Just as Congress may create or remove statutory causes
        of action, state courts may create or remove state common-law
        causes of action. See Love v. Delta Air Lines, 310 F.3d 1347, 1352 (11th
        Cir. 2002) (“Raising up causes of action where a statute has not cre-
        ated them [is] a proper function for common-law courts.” (citation
        omitted)); Gates v. Foley, 247 So. 2d 40, 43 (Fla. 1971) (explaining
        that a state’s common law of tort is “a field peculiarly nonstatu-
        tory,” which can therefore be updated and altered by state courts).
        And Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal in Freeman chose not
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        to allow a class of persons -- corporations used for Ponzi schemes -
        - to sue under Florida’s common law of tort. In other words, the
        problem with a receiver bringing common-law tort claims on be-
        half of a Ponzi corporation in Florida is not that a court lacks the
        power to adjudicate the claims, but that it chooses not to recognize
        them. The receiver is without a cause of action precisely because
        the Florida courts have so ruled, not because the receiver lacks Ar-
        ticle III standing, which is a different question the federal courts
        must answer.
             Still, we have unambiguously characterized the rule that a re-
        ceiver may not bring Florida common-law tort claims on behalf of
        a Ponzi corporation as jurisdictional. In Isaiah, we said that a re-
        ceiver in those circumstances lacked “standing.” 960 F.3d at 1308.
        It is not altogether clear whether Isaiah was using “standing” in a
        jurisdictional sense: in fact, the court affirmed the district court’s
        Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal with prejudice, whereas a dismissal for lack
        of Article III standing should have been under Rule 12(b)(1) and
        without prejudice. See id. at 1308 n.9, 1310. But we then cited
        Isaiah in Perlman and expressly said that the issue was one of subject
        matter jurisdiction. Perlman, 38 F.4th at 901; see also O’Halloran, 350
        F.3d at 1202–04 (stating, in dicta, that a Ponzi corporation would
        not have “standing” to bring common-law tort claims for injuries
        resulting from the Ponzi scheme). We did so without discussing
        why or how the issue was jurisdictional.
            Of course, we remain bound by decisions we disagree with.
        See Perez-Guerrero v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 717 F.3d 1224, 1231 (11th Cir.
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        2013); see also United States v. Hough, 803 F.3d 1181, 1197 (11th Cir.
        2015) (Carnes, C.J., concurring) (“We are bound to follow prior
        panel precedent even if we disagree with it, but we are not bound
        to remain silent about whether it is wrong.”). While the Isaiah rule
        would be better understood in terms of the lack of a cause of action,
        it has been articulated as one of standing in Isaiah, and specifically
        as one of jurisdictional standing in Perlman. Both of these cases re-
        main good law and the Court’s opinion has faithfully followed
        them. But, as I see it, it would be wiser to follow the Supreme
        Court’s instruction to “bring some discipline” to the use of jurisdic-
        tional language, Henderson, 562 U.S. at 435, and to recognize that
        rules like this one do not constrain a court’s power to hear a case,
        but rather reflect a state court’s decision to police its own causes of
        action. See Lexmark, 572 U.S. at 127–28.