Crossland LLC — not to be confused with the unrelated Crossland Construction Company of Columbus, Kansas — is a Chicago-based futures commission merchant (FCM) registered with the National Futures Association. Its offices were at 141 West Jackson Boulevard, Suite 1710-A, in the Chicago Board of Trade building. Public sources date the firm's founding to 1985 (a Wedbush press release; a Dun & Bradstreet directory listing says 1978). It is a privately held, member-managed LLC, not a public company. William N. Goodwin served as CEO and founding partner, with Kim Swahlstedt as principal/managing member. Third-party directory data (D&B) estimates roughly 12 employees and about $4 million in annual revenue; these figures are unverified and the company publishes no revenue or headcount of its own.
Operations. Crossland provided execution and clearing services in futures and options for professional traders, exchange floor traders, proprietary trading groups, introducing brokers, commodity pool operators, trading advisors, other FCMs, and institutional clients. It offered direct exchange connections (CME, CBOT, ICE, Eurex, NYSE Liffe, Euronext Paris), network/technology solutions for algorithmic trading, and round-the-clock customer support; retail accounts were funneled through guaranteed introducing broker Deep Discount Trading. In April 2014 Wedbush Securities announced an agreement to acquire select Crossland assets, including its futures execution and clearing operations. Whether Crossland LLC continued as an independent operating entity after that transaction is not clear from available public sources.
Litigation posture. Crossland appears in the case data only as a defendant (0 plaintiff cases, 2 defendant cases), consistent with an operating firm targeted in a patent-assertion campaign rather than an NPE. Both tracked suits were filed December 3, 2015 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, by Chart Trading Development, LLC — identified by Unified Patents' PTAB database as a patent assertion entity — against futures brokers and trading-platform vendors.
Context. The two cases (Chart Trading Development, LLC v. CQG, Inc. et al. and v. NinjaTrader Group, LLC et al.) are part of a group of four complaints naming roughly 32 defendants, consolidated under lead case No. 6:15-cv-1136. Chart Trading asserted patents including U.S. 7,113,190 and 8,380,611 on computer-based chart/trading functionality. Defendants jointly petitioned for Covered Business Method review at the PTAB and moved to stay the district court actions.