October 14, 2015

Federal Court in Ohio Orders Bradley A. Miklovich, a Former Associated Person of Rice Investment Company, to Make Full Restitution for Unauthorized Trading

Washington, DC — The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today announced that Judge John R. Adams of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio entered judgment in the CFTC’s favor against Bradley A. Miklovich of Stow, Ohio. The Order, entered on September 30, 2015, resolves charges that Miklovich, a former Associated Person of Rice Investment Company (Rice), a registered Introducing Broker located in Maumee, Ohio, made unauthorized trades for two customers’ accounts and falsified a customer’s account statements and Rice’s internal documents, in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC Regulations. The Order requires Miklovich to make full restitution to Rice in the amount of $566,360 and to pay a $100,000 civil monetary penalty. The Order also imposes permanent trading and registration bans on Miklovich and prohibits him from further violations of the CEA, as charged.

The Order stems from a CFTC Complaint filed on March 19, 2014, which charged Miklovich with placing 23 unauthorized trades for more than 2,000 commodity futures and options contracts from July 23 through July 30, 2013, that caused two customers’ non-discretionary accounts to sustain losses totaling approximately $574,323 (see Complaint and CFTC Press Release 6883-14).

According to the Order, Miklovich, knowing that a Rice employee responsible for compiling daily trade summaries was away from the office and thus not able to detect Miklovich’s unauthorized trading, electronically transmitted orders using his personal identifier for two customer accounts Rice carried, while the customers testified that no trades were to be made for their accounts without specific authorization.

The Order also finds that Miklovich did not inform anyone at Rice about the trades he had made, and instead knowingly omitted information that caused false reports to be generated by Rice and inaccurate daily summaries to be sent to a Rice customer. In addition, the Order finds that, after the trading losses came to light, Miklovich concocted a story to cover up his unauthorized trading by sending text messages to a Rice employee claiming that his laptop and iPad had been stolen from his car. The Order explains that Miklovich’s unauthorized trades and his attempts to conceal his conduct demonstrated a likelihood that he would engage in similar conduct in the future and justified the CFTC’s request for injunctive relief.

CFTC Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this action are Diane M. Romaniuk, Ava M. Gould, Mary Elizabeth Spear, Scott R. Williamson, and Rosemary Hollinger.

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Last Updated: October 14, 2015