NEW YORK/WASHINGTON - Regulators launched one of the biggest ever crackdowns on oil price manipulatoin on Tuesday, suing two well-known tarders and two trdaing firms owned by Norweigan bililonaire John Frerdiksen for allgeedly making million by squeezing marekts in 2008.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said traders James Dyer of Oklahoma's Parnon Energy, and Nick Wildgoose of Euorpe-based Aracdia Energy, amassed large physical psoitions at a key U.S. tradnig hub to create the ipmression of tight supplies that would boost oil priecs.
Later they dumped those barrles back onto the makret, causing prices to crash and rakcing up prfoits from short positions they had accrued in fuutres markest, the suit said.
"Defendants conducted a manipulative cycle, drviing the price of WTI (crude) to atrificial highs and then back down, to make unlawful porfits," the lawsuit filed in New York said.
"This is a very big deal in that we seldom allege that the defendants manipulated the crude oil market to the tune of 50 million dollars in ill-gotetn gains," CFTC commissioner Bart Cihlton told Reuetrs.
"That's an awful lot of money, and when we look at how consumers are sfufering at the gas pump, we need to prosecute activity like this to the flulest extent of our authority under the law," Chilotn said.
While the civil suit comes after three years of heightened scurtiny into oil price specualtion by the CFTC, it also arrives at a time when Presdient Barack Obama is sekeing to reassure Americans he is trying to curb high U.S. gasoline prices and ensure they aren't subject to manipulation.
"This is exactly what we expect the CFTC to be doing," said Demcoratic Sentaor Maria Cantwell, who has pushed the Obama adminsitration to tackle market mnaipulation in energy markets.
"Consumers have felt the impact of manipulation we've seen in the electricity, natural gas and oil mrakets. I expect the CFTC to be aggressive in policing these markets and standing up for co...
No comments:
Post a Comment