Archive

Financial Spoofs No Laughing Matter: Chicago Speed-Chess Champ Can’t Outmaneuver CFTC

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Although some take issue with cheeky parody, most of us love a good spoof. Unless, that is, the spoof is the sort that lands you in hot water with financial regulators. Chicago-based trader and speed-chess champ Igor Oystacher and his firm, 3Red Trading LLC, found out the hard way that spoofing, at least in financial industry jargon, is no laughing matter. Indeed, financial...

Russian Roulette in Futures Trading: The CFTC Cracks Down on Fictitious Trades

By Ronny Valdes On Monday September 19th, the U.S. Commodity and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the filing and simultaneous $5 million settlement of charges against JSC VTB Bank (VTB), a Russian state-backed lender, for executing fraudulent ruble-dollar trades. VTB and its U.K subsidiary, VTB Capital PLC (VTB Capital), were accused of executing noncompetitive and fictitious block trades in ruble-dollar...

In Their Own Words -- Goelman

-- “We will vigorously continue to investigate any efforts to manipulate financial benchmarks, and we will take action where possible to protect the integrity of these benchmarks.”

The CFTC’s Enforcement Director, Aitan Goelman, commenting on recent settlements with Citibank over charges that the bank manipulated trading benchmarks.

New CFTC Program May Have Some People Seeing Red

By Jason Enzler There is a new program in town to help investors protect themselves from fraud.  The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has starting publishing the identities of foreign entities that the CFTC believes may be involved in illegal practices in what the Commission calls the RED List. With the RED List, investors are now able to go online to investigate whether companies have come under...

DOJ Catch Of The Week -- Deutsche Bank

This week's Department of Justice "catch of the week" goes to Deutsche Bank AG.  Yesterday, the German-based bank and its UK-based subsidiary DB Group Services (UK) Limited agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion to settle US and UK charges relating to their role in manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR).  LIBOR is a leading benchmark interest rate used in financial products and transactions around the...