Burford Capital's New York offices in Manhattan.

After hiring a Columbia University law professor to probe the precipitous stock drop that came when short seller Muddy Waters released a scathing report on its accounting practices, Burford Capital has asked a London court for judicial approval to obtain details from the London Stock Exchange about who was behind suspicious trading.

Burford first lodged allegations of market manipulation and indicated it had engaged Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Morrison & Foerster and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer on Aug. 12, less than a week after short seller Muddy Waters said in a report that Burford was "a perfect storm for an accounting fiasco."

More than $1.2 billion was subsequently wiped from Burford's value, with shares dropping 64% at one point before rallying later in the afternoon.

In a filing Monday in the U.K.'s High Court, Quinn Emanuel London senior partner Richard East contended that an analysis from Columbia professor Joshua Mitts made clear that the plunge in value resulted from deliberate manipulation.

"The dramatic fall in Burford's share price over the Relevant Period did not merely reflect genuine market concerns that the shares had previously been overvalued, but was caused or substantially contributed to by an unlawful attack by market manipulators, apparently acting in concert with a short selling attack by Muddy Waters over the same period," East said.

Mitts concluded in his 39-page expert report that in the two days following the Muddy Waters' report, Burford's stock on London's AIM exchange was subject to an abnormally high number of sell-side order cancellations. These cancellations of proposed trades, according to Mitts, are components of "spoofing" and "layering," two techniques that send false pricing signals to the market and are prohibited by English and EU law.

Burford said that these findings are sufficient to obligate the London Stock Exchange to turn over details on who was behind these trades, so that it can seek redress on the individuals who were responsible for wiping the value off the company's stock.

"Burford is recycling this spoofing and layering quasi-allegation to distract attention from the real issues of its manipulation of financials, decrepit governance, and questions it refuses to answer," Muddy Waters founder Carson Block said in a statement Monday. "Spoofing and layering are issues that have arisen in the high frequency and computer-driven trading world, and Muddy Waters has zero capability to engage in these practices."

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