The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC beat back allegations of discriminating against two minority-owned companies that sought to trade a proposed, merged entity on the exchange after a Brooklyn federal court found that the complaint was brought by an investor too removed from the transaction to sue.

U.S. District Judge Hector Gonzalez of the Eastern District of New York dropped the case on jurisdictional grounds, pointing out that the plaintiff—Trident Capital Group Fund I LLC—was just a shareholder in the sponsor of one of the merging companies.

“The Second Circuit has made clear that ‘[a] shareholder—even the sole shareholder—does not have standing to assert claims alleging wrongs to the corporation,’” the judge said, referencing the 1987 decision, Jones v. Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority.