Anti abuse penalties continue to increase in the US following recent fines (see here). These include a settlement of $67.4 m between the CFTC and Tower Research Capital LLC for spoofing. The  CFTC press release can be found here and the order here. This article on the FT web site summarises the case.

In commodities, Mitsubishi Corporation Japan were fined $250,000 by the CME for “failure to supervise” and also placing orders with no intention on execution on NYMEX. The notice can be found here. See here on the DCM blog for further commentary.

There has been a focus on spoofing in the US. This article on the Bloomberg web site looks at how the CFTC and DoJ are pursuing a parallel civil/criminal track and using data to find suspected abuse. This post on the Government Contracts and Investigations blog by Julie Bauman and Sarah Aberg discusses the focus on spoofing and related enforcements.

We can therefore expect activity to continue being strong on this area.