commodities fraud

commodities fraud, any illegal attempt to obtain money in connection with a contract for the future delivery of assets, which ultimately are never exchanged. Commodities fraud typically involves assets traded on organized exchanges such as the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the New York Futures Exchange, the MidAmerica Commodity Exchange, and the Kansas City Board of Trade. Commodities fraud pertains to exchange members who fail to register with the exchange, who perform transactions with no economic purpose other than to generate profit for the member of the exchange, who provide false or misleading information to customers, or who steal customer funds.

Futures contracts are legally enforceable contracts, or agreements, where one party agrees to pay a certain price for a specified commodity to be delivered on a specified date. The asset may be a certain quantity of corn, soybeans, wheat, oil, petroleum, or natural gas, or it may be a financial instrument (a monetary contract between entities), such as a weather derivative (an index-based strategy to reduce risk associated with adverse weather conditions).

Futures trading can be traced to Europe in the 18th century. The immediate predecessor was the “to-arrive” contract. This was simply a contract for the purchase of goods upon their arrival. For example, ship cargoes were often sold before their arrival in port on a “to-arrive” basis. The to-arrive contract filled an important need in the grain trade in the United States, which had expanded rapidly during the 19th century. Grain prices, during the early stages of American development, were subject to a seemingly endless cycle of boom and bust. At the end of the crop year, farmers would flood the market with grain, and prices would drop drastically. Grain would then be left to rot, or simply be dumped, as prices became so low that transporting it to market became a losing proposition. Later in the crop year, shortages would develop and prices would rise as dramatically as they had fallen.

Consequently, buyers and sellers sought to provide for their needs by contracting for the delivery of quantities and grades of grain at an agreed-upon price and delivery date in the future, depending on when the grain would be needed and when it was available. This was accomplished through to-arrive or forward contracts. Soon a practice developed whereby these to-arrive contracts were themselves bought and sold in anticipation of changes in market prices.

Just as futures contracts are nothing new, neither is fraud new to commodity markets. In the 1880s, “bucket shops,” an early form of commodity fraud, appeared. A bucket shop is an establishment where bets can be made on current prices for commodities. The bets are not executed as contracts on any exchange but rather are placed on the bucket shop’s books, just as would be done by bookies, who offset their bets by their own resources. Such resources were often sadly lacking, as discovered by successful wagerers when they came to collect their winnings.

The Chicago Board of Trade sought to stop the bucket shops by cutting off access to its market quotations, upon which the bucket shop operations were wholly dependent for their operations. Nevertheless, the bucket shops continued to thrive, as a result of competition from other exchanges that provided the bucket shops with market quotations. States attempted to pass legislation regulating bucket shops. By 1922 it was clear that neither the self-regulatory approach of the exchanges through their rules nor state laws would eliminate or even curtail the fraudulent bucket shops. Therefore, in 1922 the U.S. Congress enacted the Grain Futures Act, and in 1936 Congress passed further legislation to prevent manipulation and fraud in the futures market.

In 1974 Congress transferred authority for regulating the futures market from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to a newly created independent agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC continued the regulation of futures exchanges through self-regulation with federal oversight. The CFTC created a division of enforcement to sanction exchange members who engaged in deceptive or fraudulent activities.

The CFTC’s first non-option-related fraud case involved the American International Trading Company (AITC), a Los Angeles-based company. In the 1970s the company offered a managed-account program for trading in commodity futures contracts and required an investment of as little as $2,000. AITC promised profits to speculators and guaranteed customers that they would not lose more than they invested; that is, customers would not be subject to margin calls. The program was widely advertised in Los Angeles. Individuals involved in making decisions regarding AITC investments even conducted television shows on a Los Angeles financial broadcast station, where one of their guest stars was Jack Savage, who acted as an adviser to AITC.

The CFTC charged that Savage and AITC operated a scheme to cheat and defraud customers. One way this was carried out was by wash sales. AITC advisers entered opposite buy and sell orders for AITC customers that had no effect except to generate commissions for AITC. In addition, it was charged that an AITC adviser and Savage entered into prearranged trades for customers on the floor of the MidAmerica Exchange in a manner that allowed Savage to make large profits to the detriment of AITC customers. AITC was additionally charged with entering into a series of “Robin Hood” transactions where profitable sides of offsetting trades were allocated to customers whose equity had declined below zero, requiring AITC to meet their margin calls. The nonprofitable sides of those trades were placed in the accounts of AITC customers with positive equity balances. This trading effectively transferred funds from customers with positive equity balances to customers with negative balances.

The CFTC obtained injunctive relief and administrative sanction against AITC advisers, Savage, and others. AITC was closed down, and a civil penalty of $250,000 was imposed by consent, although it was never collected. Savage appealed the injunction obtained by the CFTC. Although he was successful in some issues, the injunction was affirmed in other respects.