Washington, D.C. — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today issued an order simultaneously filing and settling charges against Walleye Capital LLC (Walleye), a CFTC-registered commodity pool operator (CPO) and commodity trading advisor (CTA), headquartered in Minnesota, for spoofing by a former trader in soybean futures, soybean meal futures, and soybean oil futures on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), a futures exchange and designated contract market owned and operated by the CME Group Inc. (CME Group).

The order finds Walleye vicariously liable for the conduct of its former trader and requires the company to pay a $550,000 civil monetary penalty.

“This enforcement action demonstrates the CFTC’s commitment to vigorously detect unlawful spoofing conduct, particularly when traders seek to avoid detection by engaging in cross-product spoofing,” said Acting Director of Enforcement Gretchen Lowe.

Case Background

The order finds a trader, who was employed by Walleye at the time, engaged in spoofing (bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution) on hundreds of occasions from December 2018 through May 2019 in soybean futures, soybean meal futures, or soybean oil futures with the goal of inducing a fill on the trader’s orders placed on the opposite side of the market in either a different soybean product (cross-product spoofing), a different expiration month (cross-calendar spoofing), or within the same product and expiration month (single-product spoofing). The order finds the company vicariously liable for the trader’s spoofing, which the trader engaged in while trading for Walleye.

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