Carolina Gonzalez, 16 October 2016
JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay over $955 million to settle civil and criminal charges over a scheme involving fake trades in precious metals and U.S. treasuries designed to manipulate the market in an effort to enhance the bank’s profits and cut losses. The multi-agency enforcement action was brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). For nearly a decade, JPMorgan Chase & Co’s traders sitting in New York, London, and Singapore used spoofing to manipulate hundreds of thousands of transactions in precious metals futures markets, including gold and silver, as well as U.S. Treasury cash and futures markets.
The CFTC alone imposed a whopping $920 million fine, the largest ever imposed by the agency in a spoofing case, including nearly $312 million in restitution to harmed investors, $172 million in disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, and over $436 million in civil penalties. This record-setting action signals the CFTC’s resolute commitment to punish those who engage in manipulative and deceptive trading practices. The hefty fine also reflects the bank’s failure to prevent and cease the wrongdoing, as well as its failure to provide adequate cooperation to regulators in the early stages of the investigation. Continue reading “Article: JPMorgan Chase Pays nearly $1 Billion in Fines for Market Manipulation of Precious Metals and U.S. Treasuries”
