The long running case against Fabiana Abdel-Malek, a former compliance officer at UBS AG, and Walid Choucair a day trader (see here) has returned a “guilty” verdict. Abdel-Malek was accused of providing Choucair with inside information in person, using a “burner” phone and personal meetings to communicate. The case is reported here on FT.com and here on Bloomberg.

Merrill Lynch has been fined $25 million by the CFTC for spoofing in precious metals futures over a period of years on the COMEX exchange. The press release from the CFTC can be found here, the order here, and an article on the case on The Trade News here.

This article on Montel’s web site reports on a discussion about whether holding back generation for the intra-day market by not bidding it into the day ahead market should constitute “market manipulation”. The recent cases around “physical withholding” and related activity (see here) have led to many discussions on the difference between “optimisation” and “manipulation”.