Lawsuit Stunner: Half of Futures Trades in Chicago Are Illegal Wash Trades

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The most stunning allegation in the lawsuit is that an estimated 50 percent of all trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is derived from illegal wash trades.

Wash trades were a practice by the Wall Street pool operators that rigged the late 1920s stock market, leading to the great stock market crash from 1929 through 1932 and the Great Depression. Wash trades occur when the same beneficial owner is both the buyer and the seller. Wash trades are banned under United States law because they can falsely suggest volume and price movement.

The lawsuit says Duffy and his management team are tolerating wash trades “because they comprise by some estimates fifty percent of the Exchange Defendants’ total trading volume and also because HFT transactions account for up to thirty percent of the CME Group’s revenue.”
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The traders bringing the lawsuit, which is filed as a class action, are William Charles Braman, Mark Mendelson and John Simms. Lawyers for the plaintiffs are R. Tamara de Silva, who maintains a private practice, and lawyers from O’Rourke & Moody.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The Civil Docket for the case is #: 1:14-cv-02646 and has been assigned to Judge Charles P. Kocoras. The CME Group is represented by the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP.

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