Washington, D.C. — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today issued two orders simultaneously filing and settling charges against Randy Chen (Chen), a California resident, and Tanius Technology, LLC (Tanius), a proprietary trading firm headquartered in California, for spoofing in 12 futures contracts—primarily, but not exclusively, Treasury futures contracts—on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).

The order against Chen requires him to pay a $150,000 civil monetary penalty; suspends him for six months from trading on or subject to the rules of any CFTC-designated exchange and all other CFTC-registered entities and in all commodity interests; and orders him to cease and desist from violating the Commodity Exchange Act’s spoofing prohibition. In addition, the order against Tanius requires it to pay a $600,000 civil monetary penalty.

“This enforcement action demonstrates the CFTC will not tolerate acts of spoofing, which threaten the integrity of the derivatives markets, and will hold accountable both individual traders and the firms that employ them,” said Division of Enforcement Acting Director Gretchen Lowe.

Case Background

The order against Chen, who was a Tanius employee at the time, finds that he engaged in spoofing (bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution) on over 1,000 separate occasions from October 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 in 12 CME futures contracts—primarily Treasury futures contracts. The order against Tanius finds the firm vicariously liable for Chen’s spoofing, which Chen engaged in while trading for Tanius.

Related Exchange Action

Today, CME Group announced disciplinary actions against Chen and Tanius. The CFTC thanks CME Group for its assistance in this matter.

The Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this action are Anthony Biagioli, Allison Sizemore, Jeff Le Riche, Christopher Reed, and Charles Marvine. The Division of Enforcement Spoofing Task Force also contributed to this action.