Several cases around spoofing in the US have moved forward as well as one in the UK:
The case against JP Morgan reported last week for spoofing in precious metals futures (see here) has resulted in a settlement of $920 million, a record in terms of spoofing cases. The press release can be found here and the order here. The order includes further details around the case, which are also summarised in this article on the Bloomberg web site.
The trial of two former Deutsche Bank traders for spoofing has resulted in a guilty verdict for some of the charges brought, although not all, which can be found here. Sentencing will take place in January. The activity relates to gold futures. This article on the Bloomberg web site discusses the case, the fact that the convictions used chat room transcripts and the possibility of appeal.
In addition, FNY Partners and the trader in question have been fined a total of $585,000 by the CFTC for spoofing on COMEX. The press release can be found here and the orders here and here.
In the UK, the trial against a trader for deleting WhatsApp messages has retuned a not guilty verdict. The trader was alleged to have deleted the messages despite knowing that they could form part of an investigation. The FCA has made this statement expressing their disappointment at the verdict. The case is described further is this article on FT Adviser.
In the US, the CFTC has fined Citigroup affiliates a total of $4.5 million for the deletion of audio files. The press release can be found here and the order here.
Regarding the UK case, I haven’t seen any detailed reports or case transcript that provides information on the line taken by Mr Vishnyak’s defence, so my following comment is supposition. The FCA statement quotes the relevant part of the law as “….a person who knows or suspects that an investigation is being or is likely to be conducted under Part XI of FSMA is guilty of an offence if he falsifies, conceals, destroys or otherwise disposes of a document which he knows or suspects is or would be relevant to such an investigation.” Criminal juries are strange and fickle creatures at the best of times. I assume the trader pleaded not guilty, so for the sake on consistency, he did not believe himself guilty of any crime, so he believed there would be no investigation, so there was no need to preserve his WhatsApp correspondence. My guess is that the defence managed to argue successfully that Mr Vishnyak was reasonable to assume that his WhatsApp messages would not form part of the documents that would be relevant in an investigation because there wasn’t going to be an investigation. The jury would need to weigh up the two alternatives – either Mr Vishnyak was guilty, and the deletion of his WhatsApp material was evidence of a deliberate attempt to conceal his guilt, OR he wasn’t guilty, and the deletion of WhatsApp was an innocent act. Perhaps the FCA needs to reinforce the message that all staff with access to inside information may be subject to investigation at any time, so all their correspondence (professional and private) is subject to scrutiny, so must be kept for a defined period of time. Knowledge or suspicions of an investigation are irrelevant. It sounds like the law needs tightening up to ensure that there is no wiggle-room for people to argue that if they believed they were acting lawfully, there was no need to keep material that could be used in an investigation because they believed no investigation would ever take place.