“Goodbye 2013 frauds; welcome 2014 abuses.

 

The financial crisis may be five years behind us, but there will never be a shortage in the ways in which the financial markets may be manipulated and abused.

 

Developments this past year are likely to affect future enforcement actions. For example, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission used the new antifraud rule authorized by the Dodd-Frank Act for the first time against JPMorgan Chase as part of the settlement over the “London whale” case. In that case, the agency accused the firm of using a “manipulative device” in its trading. This gives the agency a powerful tool to police trading in the huge financial futures markets.

 

The Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled a new policy in selected cases that required an admission of liability, rather than the old “neither admit nor deny” settlement. JPMorgan was the first company subjected to this policy shift by admitting violations related to reporting the London whale trades, coming shortly after a case in which the hedge fund manager Philip A. Falcone acknowledged wrongdoing in how he managed his firm.”

 

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Read the full New York Times story here