That is incredible. When I read about it I basically fell from my chair (including the report about the court case).
I believe that we, as a community, should react and possibly all run away from Bittrex. Note that this is done for me (just to stress that I not only talk).
Bittrex treats HIVE terrible anyway, HBD volume is a joke basically. I use Mandala now.
The HBD-BTC pair was precisely why I kept this account. However, as you said the volume is so low that it is not very useful at the end of the day.