Goldman Sachs to Pay $120 Million to Resolve Benchmark Manipulation Probe

Penalty from commodities regulators relates to broad ISDAfix benchmark Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will pay $120 million to resolve claims that it manipulated a key benchmark swaps rate, authorities said on Wednesday. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Goldman traders in New York tried to manipulate the ISDAfix rate between 2007 and March 2012 in an effort to benefit the bank’s own positions. The settlement is the latest in a series of related cases, as regulators work through a number of investigations into banks’ alleged manipulation of a range of benchmarks including ISDAfix and the Libor interest rate benchmark. read more »

Odebrecht to Pay $2.6 Billion to Settle Bribery Claims

Construction giant Odebrecht SA will pay $2.6 billion to U.S., Brazilian and Swiss authorities to resolve a global investigation into bribes paid across the world to secure business, according to a person familiar with the matter. The settlement pertains, in part, to the massive corruption scheme centered on Brazilian state-controlled oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras. read more »

Seven Banks Fined in Swiss Probes of Rate-Rigging Cartels

Switzerland handed out about $100 million in antitrust fines against seven U.S. and European banks for participating in cartels to manipulate widely used financial benchmarks. JPMorgan Chase & Co. was fined 33.9 million francs ($33 million) for operating a cartel with Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc for more than a year, with the aim of influencing the Swiss franc Libor benchmark, which is tied to the London interbank offered rate, Switzerland’s competition commission said in a statement Wednesday. RBS received immunity for revealing the existence of the cartel, which operated between March 2008 and July 2009. “RBS and JPMorgan tried to distort the normal course of the pricing of interest-rate derivatives denominated in Swiss franc,” the commission wrote. “They occasionally discussed the future Swiss franc Libor rate submissions of one of the banks and at times exchanged information concerning trading positions and intended prices.” read more »

Chicago trader to pay USD2.5m to settle CFTC futures spoofing charges

Chicago trader Igor B Oystacher and his trading company 3Red Trading are to pay USD2.5 million to settle CFTC charges over spoofing and using a “manipulative and deceptive device” while trading futures contracts on multiple exchanges. The US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has entered a Consent Order of Permanent Injunction against the defendants, finding that the spoofing scheme involved at least five different futures contracts on four exchanges over a period of more than two years. The court’s order stems from a CFTC complaint filed on 19 October 2015 relating to E-Mini S&P 500, copper, crude oil, natural gas, and VIX futures contracts read more »

CFTC Charges Trader with Fraud in Ponzi-Style Commodity Pool Scheme

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed an anti-fraud enforcement action in an Arizona court, charging Derek Springfield and his company, Draven, with engaging in fraudulent sales practices, providing false account statements to commodity pool participants and misappropriating pool participants’ funds. Today’s announcement comes just one day after the watchdog imposed an $800K fine on David Zier and his company, ZAM, in yet another fraudulent commodity pool activity scheme. read more »

SandRidge Energy will pay $1.4 mln to settle whistleblower claims – SEC

An Oklahoma oil-and-gas company will pay $1.4 million to settle claims by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it unlawfully fired an employee who raised concerns that the company improperly calculated the value of its reserves, the agency said on Tuesday. read more »

Petrochemical Manufacturer Braskem S.A. to Pay $957 Million to Settle FCPA Charges

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that a Brazilian-based petrochemical manufacturer whose stock trades in the U.S. markets has agreed to settle charges that it created false books and records to conceal millions of dollars in illicit bribes paid to Brazilian government officials to win or retain business. In a global settlement with the SEC, U.S. Department of Justice, and authorities in Brazil and Switzerland, Braskem S.A. agreed to pay $957 million. The SEC’s complaint alleges that Braskem made approximately $325 million in profits through bribes paid through intermediaries and off-book accounts managed by a private company that was Braskem’s largest shareholder.  Bribes were paid to a government official at Brazil’s state-controlled petroleum company as well as Brazilian legislators and political party officials. read more »

U.S. brings charges over pay-to-play scheme at New York pension fund

U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday accused a former portfolio manager at New York state's retirement fund of steering $2 billion in trades in exchange for bribes from brokerage employees, in the latest pay-to-play case to rock the fund. Navnoor Kang, the ex-director of fixed income at the New York State Common Retirement Fund, was charged in an indictment filed in Manhattan federal court along with Deborah Kelley, a former Sterne Agee Group Inc managing director. read more »

FINRA fines Wells Fargo, others $14 mln for records' changeable format

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said it fined several Wells Fargo & Co businesses, RBC Capital Markets, LPL Financial and others a combined $14.4 million on Wednesday for record-keeping problems that may have allowed company and customer documents to be altered. The securities industry's self-regulator found that the firms failed to keep hundreds of millions of electronic documents in a "write once, read many" format, which would have made it impossible to alter or destroy records after they were written. The firms agreed to the fines but neither admitted nor denied the charges. read more »