U.S. President Donald Trump and his children cannot force arbitration in a lawsuit alleging that they, and the Trump Corp., had illegally profited from promoting doomed products and services to unsophisticated investors across the country, a Manhattan federal judge ruled late Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield of the Southern District of New York said in a 16-page opinion that Trump and his children, Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr., could not avail themselves of arbitration agreements the unnamed plaintiffs had entered in to with ACN Inc., the multilevel marketing company at the center of the allegations.