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Inflation Reduction Act
Monthly Futures Exchange Issuance Report: December 2015
December's Highlight On November 4, 2015, the Chairman of the CFTC, Timothy Massad, gave a speech to the Futures Industry Association Futures and Options Expo, in which he focused on the subject of swap data reporting. The Chairman noted the...
Supreme Court Upholds FERC's Demand Response Rule, Order No. 745
In a closely watched case with potential impacts across a broad swath of the electric energy industry, on January 25, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the D.C. Circuit's May 2014 ruling in EPSA v. FERC and instead upheld the...
FERC Clarifies Scope of Proposed RTO and ISO Disclosure Requirements
On December 8, 2015, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC") Office of Enforcement held a technical conference respecting FERC's recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("NOPR") on Connected Entity Data. As discussed in an earlier post , if adopted, the NOPR...
CFTC Settles Gas Index Manipulation Claim While FERC Allegations Remain
CFTC Order Accepting Settlement with Total Gas & Power North America, Inc. & Therese Tran for Attempted Manipulation of Natural Gas Monthly Index Settlement Prices On December 7, 2015, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC" or the "Commission") issued an...
Monthly Futures Exchange Issuance Report: November 2015
November's Highlight In November there were a significant number of disciplinary actions across the exchanges related to pre-arranged trading, including the execution of block trades. The exchanges clearly continue to focus on these types of violations and market participants should...
Monthly Futures Exchange Issuance Report: October 2015
October's Highlight October saw the first criminal conviction pursuant to Section 4c(a) for spoofing. A jury concluded that for approximately three months, an individual used a computer algorithm to place orders he did not intend to execute for the purpose...
Monthly Futures Exchange Issuance Report: September 2015
September's Highlight September saw a handful of settlements of ICE Futures enforcement actions related to position limit violations under Rule 6.20(b). The settlements of these actions included monetary fines, disgorgement of profits, and cease and desist orders. Of note, an...
FERC Proposes To Expand Classes Of Information Collected From Participants In RTO And ISO Markets
On September 17, 2015, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC") issued a notice of proposed rulemaking ("NOPR") proposing to significantly expand the information that entities would be required to disclose in order to participate in the wholesale markets administered by...
Monthly Futures Exchange Issuance Report: August 2015
August's Highlight This past month, the NYMEX Business Conduct Committee ("Panel") entered into a settlement with an entity to resolve alleged violations of Exchange Rule 526- Block Trades and two Market Regulation Advisory Notices, RA1326-4 and RA-1327-4, related to pre-hedging...
BP Initial Decision: The Significance of Change
On August 13, 2015, the administrative law judge ("ALJ") assigned to hear evidence in BP America Inc. et. Al (Docket No. IN13-15) issued an Initial Decision in which she found that BP America Inc., and certain of its affiliates (collectively...
BP Initial Decision Adopts FERC Staff's Positions
Seven years after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC" or the "Commission") first opened an investigation into the trading practices of BP America Inc. and certain of its affiliates (collectively "BP"), on August, 13, 2015, Administrative Law Judge Carmen Cintron...
FERC Fines Columbia Gas $350,000 for Violating Auction Rules
On July 30, 2015, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a stipulation and consent agreement between the FERC Office of Enforcement and Columbia Gas Transmission LLC (Columbia Gas) for violations of Section 4 of Columbia Gas's tariff governing auctions...
CFTC v. Kraft Foods: What is Market Manipulation?
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is engaged in its first court battle interpreting its new anti-manipulation authority under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) as amended by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank): CFTC...
Scope of Trial De Novo Debated in Barclays Electricity Manipulation Case
After almost eight years since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commenced its investigation against Barclays Bank PLC (Barclays) and four of its traders, Scott Connelly, Daniel Brin, Karen Levine and Ryan Smith, for allegedly manipulating the California electricity markets...
FERC Issues Two Oil Pipeline Audits
On June 17, 2015, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Division of Audits and Accounting, Office of Enforcement (DAA), issued two audit reports involving oil pipelines, the Colonial Pipeline Company Docket No. FA14-4 and Enterprise Products Partners, L.P., Docket No...