Regulatory Violations

June 8, 2016

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC will pay a $1 million penalty to settle charges related to its failures to protect customer information, some of which was hacked and offered for sale online.  As a result of failures to adopt policies and procedures reasonably designed to protect customer data, from 2011 to 2014, a then-employee impermissibly accessed and transferred data regarding approximately 730,000 accounts to his personal server which was ultimately hacked by third parties.  SEC

July 28, 2016

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ordered Vault Options, Ltd. and Global Trader 365, two Israeli web-based binary options firms, to pay over $4.5 million in penalties and restitution for unlawful off-exchange binary options trading, fraud, and registration violations.  CFTC

July 11, 2016

Agrocorp International Pte Ltd., a commodities trading and distribution company headquartered in Singapore, agreed to pay a $150,000 penalty to resolve charges that it failed to disclose its call cotton purchases and sales.  CFTC

July 11, 2016

Golden Agri International Pte Ltd., a private limited company formed in Singapore that operates as a processor and trader of crude palm oil, which it hedges with soybean oil futures contracts, agreed to pay a $150,000 penalty to resolve charges that it failed to report its cash positions.  CFTC

July 7, 2016

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois entered a consent order requiring Matthew Marcus of California and his company, Tech Power Inc., a Nevada corporation located in California, to pay a $250,000 penalty for instigating a money pass scheme involving more than 1,200 single stock futures trades.  CFTC

July 6, 2016

Barclays Bank PLC agreed to pay a $560,000 penalty to resolve charges that it failed to submit accurate large trader reports for physical commodity swap positions.  CFTC

June 20, 2016

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida ordered Harvard Assets LLC, London Assets Inc., and Harvard International Trading, Inc., all based in Florida, and their controlling person, Todd Owen Marshall, with a last known address in Deerfield Beach, Florida, to pay over $2.4 million in disgorgement and penalties for engaging in illegal, off-exchange precious metals transactions and registration violations.  CFTC

June 1, 2016

Maryland-based private equity firm Blackstreet Capital Management and its owner, Marry N. Gunty, will pay $3.1 million to settle charges that they engaged in brokerage activity and charged fees without registering as a broker-dealer and committed other securities law violations.  Blackstreet and Gunty performed in-house brokerage services rather than using investment banks or broker-dealers to handle the acquisition and disposition of portfolio companies for a pair of private equity funds they advise.  Blackstreet fully disclosed that it would provide brokerage services in exchange for a few, but failed to comply with the registration requirements to operate as a broker-dealer.  An SEC investigation further found that Blackstreet and Gunty engaged in conflicted transactions and inadequately disclosed fees and expenses.  SEC

June 3, 2016

The CFTC charged Haena Park and her companies Phaetra Capital GP LLC, a/k/a/ Argenta Capital GP LLC, Phaetra Capital Management LP, a/k/a Argenta Capital LLC, and Argenta Group LLC, for engaging in a $23 million scheme to fraudulently operate a commodity pool and misappropriate pool participants’ assets.  CFTC

June 2, 2016

The CFTC ordered Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange, BFXNA Inc. d/b/a Bitfinex to pay a $75,000 penalty for offering illegal off-exchange financed retail commodity transactions in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and for failing to register as a Futures Commission Merchant.  CFTC