About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

51 U.S. Att'ys Bull. 9 (2003)
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) Assault on Fraud

handle is hein.journals/usab51 and id is 254 raw text is: Federal Prosecutions ofBusiness Organizations at § I.A. The general principles and commentary in Federal Prosecutions of Business Organizations provide a framework within which to make the difficult charging decisions that arise during the investigations of corporate subjects and targets.V ABOUT THE AUTHOR The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) Assault on Fraud Daniel A. Nathan Chief Office of Cooperative Enforcement Division ofEnforcement Commodity Futures Trading Commission The bad news is that commodities fraud is taking its place on the corporate and consumer fraud landscape alongside financial fraud, prime bank schemes, front-running, and other unfortunate by-products of the modern financial era. The good news is that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is up to the job of pursuing this fraud, and has been pursuing it in close cooperation with the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorneys, among others. As a result of increasing recognition by regulators of the prevalence of commodities fraud, and the CFTC's aggressive enforcement program attacking that fraud, the CFTC's Division of Enforcement has gained recognition and respect for its important role in financial regulation. The significance of the CFTC's regulatory regime in the broader worlds of corporate fraud and sophisticated white collar schemes is evidenced by the CFTC's membership in the President's Working Group on Financial Markets and the President's Corporate Fraud Task Force. Always active in pursuing matters within its jurisdiction, in recent years the Division of Enforcement (Division) has participated in joint fraud investigations and enforcement actions with other federal and state civil and criminal agencies, and presented training in commodity violations, including energy-related and foreign currency trading violations, to other regulators. From a public protection standpoint, this is all to the good. Greater awareness by the law enforcement community of the CFTC's jurisdiction, and the Division's ability to aggressively prosecute commodities fraud, means that more of this fraud will be addressed by the CFTC, on its own or together with criminal authorities. Moreover, as more regulators nationwide pursue criminal and civil commodities fraud cases on the federal and state level, members of the public will learn to recognize the many common forms this fraud takes and be better able to protect themselves against it. I. The CFTC's jurisdiction A. What commodities fraud looks like Consider these increasingly common scenarios: * An individual invests funds in a pool, or self described hedge fund, only to find that the money and the promoter have disappeared. * An individual receives an unsolicited cold call or spam e-mail, or sees an ad on television, promoting investments in heating oil options based on the brokerage firm's purported track record. The ad encourages the public to take advantage of the approaching winter and the inevitable rise in heating oil prices. * An investor receives an aggressive solicitation for the purchase of a specified foreign UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS' BULLETIN JSean R. Berry is an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Iowa where he is responsible for the investigation and prosecution of white collar and computer crimes. Mr. Berry was Chief of the Major Frauds Section in the Central District of California prior to joining the Northern District of lowa's United States Attorney's Office.4 NOVEMBER 2003 9

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most