CFTC Archives - The Industry Spread

CFTC Charges Principal of a Purported Commodity Trading Firm with Social Media Based Fraudulent Scheme

February 15, 2019 by industryspread Leave a Comment Filed Under: Regulatory Annoucements Tagged: CFTC, Commodity Trading Firm, financial services authority, foreign currency forex, Forex, Forex trading, Fraud Advisories, Fraudulent Scheme, FX, Kelvin O. Ramirez, potential fraud, social media, Trading Firm

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today announced that a federal court in a CFTC enforcement action entered a preliminary injunction prohibiting defendant Kelvin O. Ramirez (Ramirez), of Houston, Texas from engaging in fraud, misappropriation of customer funds, and regulatory violations in connection with an off-exchange foreign currency (forex) scheme. The CFTC’s complaint charges that Ramirez defrauded more than 140 clients by falsely claiming he had millions of dollars in assets under management when he did not and there is no evidence of him trading. Instead, as alleged, he absconded with his clients’ money.

James McDonald, CFTC’s Director of Enforcement, said “This case shows the CFTC’s continued commitment to rooting out fraud in our markets, whether it flows through traditional avenues or new ones, like the social-media based scheme alleged here. As social media becomes more prevalent, we caution customers to perform appropriate due diligence regarding any investment solicitations they receive over those platforms.”

The preliminary injunction order, issued on January 29, also continued a freeze of Ramirez’s assets and preservation of records ordered by the court on January 15.

Specifically, the CFTC Complaint, filed on January 14, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, alleges that from as early as 2015 to the present, Ramirez defrauded more than 140 people by fraudulently soliciting them to (1) invest in commodity pools that purportedly trade in forex, (2) trade forex through accounts managed by Ramirez, and (3) subscribe to his forex trading education and signals service, then misappropriating the funds provided to him for these purposes. Ramirez allegedly lured his clients primarily through social media — including Instagram, WhatsApp, and similar platforms. Among other alleged misrepresentations, Ramirez’s solicitations touted his hundreds of thousands of dollars in weekly forex trading profits; a lavish lifestyle funded through his profits; his growing multi-million dollar personal bank balance; and a managed forex trading pool with millions of dollars in assets under management. Ramirez’s solicitations allegedly promised his clients return of their principal plus extravagant profits paid periodically during the investment term with virtually no warning of the risk associated with trading. As alleged, all of these representations were false, and Ramirez essentially stole his clients’ money.

Also as alleged in the Complaint, in operating his fraudulent business, Ramirez was required but failed to register as a Commodity Pool Operator and Commodity Trading Advisor and committed other related regulatory violations.

In its continuing litigation against Ramirez, the CFTC seeks restitution to defrauded clients, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, permanent registration and trading bans, and a permanent injunction against future violations of federal commodities laws, as charged.

The CFTC thanks and acknowledges the assistance of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Financial Services Authority.

CFTC Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this case are Daniel Jordan, Diana Dietrich, Michael Loconte, Erica Bodin and Rick Glaser.

CFTC’s Foreign Currency (Forex) Fraud Advisory

The CFTC has issued several customer protection Fraud Advisories that provide the warning signs of fraud, including the Foreign Currency Trading (Forex) Fraud Advisory, which states that the CFTC has witnessed a sharp rise in Forex trading scams in recent years and helps customers identify this potential fraud.

Turbo Tax To Make Cyrpto-Profit Tax Filing Easy

February 15, 2019 by Michael Volpe Leave a Comment Filed Under: Feature Articles Tagged: API, BitMEX, CFTC, crypto, Kraken, Poloniex, TokenTax

Turbo tax is trying to make tax payments for cryptocurrency easier this year.

The electronic tax preparer is touting Token Tax, its software add-on to hep crypto traders and investors easily account for tax burden of all their trades.

“Token Tax is the only crypto tax platform that connects to every major trading exchange. No matter where your data is from, we’ll calculate your taxes with it.” Turbo tax says on its Token Tax website.

Furthermore, Token Tax boasts that it is supported by every major token exchange.

“We accept data from every major cryptocurrency trading exchange on the market. Easily import all your historical transactions while also adding new ones automatically via API as you trade.” It also says on the site.

API, or application programming interface, and it is “ a program that enables one software application to interact with another. In simple terms, an API is a messenger that takes requests and tells a system what you want it to do — and then returns the system’s response back to you.” According to the site Brave New Coin.

Token tax even handles the tax consequences of margin trading, “We know that for some of you, merely trading crypto isn’t exciting enough. You need leverage as well. Don’t worry, we can handle that. TokenTax is the only cryptocurrency tax platform that correctly handles margin trades from Poloniex, Bitmex, Bitfinex, Kraken, and more, and it’s part of why we are the go-to tax software for cryptocurrency traders.”

Along with a new site to explain Token Tax, Turbo Tax also released a one-minute video on You Tube.

According to the video, a tax filer needs to

create an account
Complete a tax profile (by entering the filers name, address, etc.0
Add the crypto data by using a CSP upload or “by connecting to your crypto-exchange”.
Choose the preferred accounting method
Download the tax forms

“You’re done,” the video notes.

Token tax is available globally, “Crypto is a global movement, and so are we. We’re based in the United States, but we’ve had customers from around the globe. We serve all countries and can convert your data and calculations into any currency. We’ve helped customers do their taxes in countries from Germany and Portugal to South Korea and Australia — and many more.”

In February 2018, Commodities Futures Trading Commission Chairman testified in front of the Senate and warned that though it is easier to dodge the taxes on crypto- profits, they are due and they are mandatory.

Giancarlo Christopher

“I know that a lot of people in the crypto community may be watching this hearing,” Giancarlo said during the hearing. “So, this is a very good opportunity to remind them that taxes are due on crypto currency transactions that may be taxable. So, this is not an off-the-grid-from-a-tax-point-of-view environment.”

In CFTC Action, Court Orders Precious Metals Trader to Pay Penalty and Imposes Trading Ban for Spoofing and Deceptive or Manipulative Scheme

February 12, 2019 by industryspread Leave a Comment Filed Under: Regulatory Annoucements Tagged: CFTC, CFTC Action, CFTC Regulations, Manipulative Scheme, Metals Trader, spoofing, Trading Ban, UBS AG, violation

Washington, DC — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced today that Judge Vanessa Bryant of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut issued a Final Judgment and Consent Order on February 5, 2019, against Andre Flotron, a former precious metals trader for UBS AG, requiring him to pay a $100,000 civil monetary penalty for spoofing and engaging in a deceptive or manipulative scheme through his spoofing in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC Regulations. The Order also imposes a one-year trading and registration ban.

James McDonald, CFTC Director of Enforcement commented:
James McDonald, CFTC’s Director of the Division of Enforcement
“This case reflects our continued commitment to preserving the integrity of our markets — like the precious metals markets at issue here — and to rooting out unlawful practices like spoofing. As this case shows, we will continue to work vigorously to hold individuals accountable, and not just the companies that employ them, for misconduct in our markets.”

The Order, arising from a CFTC complaint filed on January 26, 2018 (see CFTC Complaint and Press Release 7685-18), finds that from at least August 2008 through at least November 2013, while employed at UBS, Flotron placed large orders in the precious metals futures markets with the intent to cancel the orders before execution (spoof orders). The Order finds that in placing the spoof orders, Flotron intended to send market participants a signal of greater supply or demand to create the misimpression that the price would move up or down and trick market participants to transact on smaller, genuine orders that he placed on the opposite side of the market. The Order concludes that Flotron’s conduct constituted spoofing and a deceptive or manipulative scheme in violation of the CEA and CFTC Regulations.

This case was brought in connection with the CFTC Division of Enforcement’s Spoofing Task Force, and the staff members responsible are Alben Weinstein, David Oakland, Sam Wasserman, Patryk J. Chudy, Lenel Hickson, Jr., and Manal M. Sultan.

Federal Judge Imposes Million Dollar Fine in Futures Scheme – CFTC

February 11, 2019 by Michael Volpe Leave a Comment Filed Under: Feature Articles Tagged: CEA, CFTC, Federal Reserve System, Futures Scheme, Pishon Holding LLC

A civil fine has added to problems for a Washington couple involved in a futures trading scheme.

The Commodities Futures Trading Commission announced that a federal judge fined Sung Hong a/k/a Lawrence Hong or Laurence Hong, his wife, Hyun Joo Hong a/k/a/ Grace Hong.

“The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced today that on December 27, 2018 a Washington State federal court ordered Bellevue, Washington residents Sung Hong a/k/a Lawrence Hong or Laurence Hong, his wife, Hyun Joo Hong a/k/a/ Grace Hong, and their company Pishon Holding LLC to pay more than $1.25 million in restitution in connection with an enforcement action brought by the CFTC charging the defendants with fraudulent solicitation and misappropriation involving futures contracts. In addition to the restitution, the Court Order also imposes a permanent trading and registration ban on the Hongs and Pishon and prohibits them from violating provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) as charged.” The CFTC said in a statement.

On October 11, 2018, Laurence Hong was sentenced to a 180-month prison term and Grace Hong was sentenced to a 72-month prison term for their roles in the scheme.

“Using faith and fraud, this couple stole millions from people whose dreams of a better life have now been shattered,” said U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes said at the time the sentence was announced. “Both repeatedly lied to their investors, all while spending their hard earned money on high-end shopping sprees, luxurious vacations, a yacht and an expensive rental home. Their victims now live paycheck to paycheck with college and retirement funds depleted and a very different financial future than they expected.”

The US Attorney’s office described the scheme then.

“According to records filed in the case, the HONGs recruited investors using religious organizations and shared religious beliefs. The couple claimed that LAURENCE HONG privately invested billions of dollars for wealthy Korean families and that GRACE HONG held a Series 65 securities license and previously worked for a large international investment firm. None of these statements were true. Likewise, the defendants did not disclose LAURENCE HONG’s past criminal conviction for investment fraud. The couple sent potential investors misleading and false investment prospectuses that contained an inaccurate record of their past investment performance and other plagiarized investment outlooks.

“Throughout their fraudulent scheme, the HONGs used stolen investor funds for their own benefit, including payments for a 9,000 square foot rental home in Clyde Hill; a 45-foot yacht; multiple high-end vehicles, such as BMWs, a Maserati, an Aston Martin, and a Lamborghini; and numerous expensive vacations to locations such as the Bahamas and Beverly Hills.

“One church in California invested $1 million with the HONGs and lost about $300,000 on a single trade. Still, despite the steep losses and a fee arrangement based on investment gains, the HONGs withdrew almost $150,000, ostensibly as advisor fees, from the church’s account. Another couple allowed the HONGs to manage their $180,000 in retirement funds only to lose $100,000 within less than a year. After meeting with the HONGs, that couple then invested their remaining retirement funds in the HONGs’ hedge fund, only for those funds to be redirected into GRACE HONG’s personal account. The HONGs used those funds to pay credit card bills and other personal expenses, including a $16,000 payment to a resort in the Bahamas for a HONG family vacation.”

Federal Court Orders Husband and Wife Team and Their Company to Pay Defrauded Customers More Than $1 Million in Connection with a Futures Trading Scheme

February 11, 2019 by industryspread Leave a Comment Filed Under: Regulatory Annoucements Tagged: CFTC, CFTC Complaint, Defrauded Customers, Federal Court, funds, Futures Trading Scheme, trading

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced today that on December 27, 2018 a Washington State federal court ordered Bellevue, Washington residents Sung Hong a/k/a Lawrence Hong or Laurence Hong, his wife, Hyun Joo Hong a/k/a/ Grace Hong, and their company Pishon Holding LLC to pay more than $1.25 million in restitution in connection with an enforcement action brought by the CFTC charging the defendants with fraudulent solicitation and misappropriation involving futures contracts. In addition to the restitution, the Court Order also imposes a permanent trading and registration ban on the Hongs and Pishon and prohibits them from violating provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) as charged.

The Court’s Order stems from a CFTC Complaint filed on June 1, 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. [See CFTC Press Release 7569-17]. In the Order, Judge Marsha Pechman found that the Hongs and Pishon misappropriated $1,259,317.77 from their customers. Additionally, the court found that the Hongs and Pishon fraudulently solicited more than $11 million dollars from customers for the purpose of trading futures contacts. The court further found that the Hongs and Pishon lied about, about among other things how much money they had under management; Laurence Hong’s prior trading success; and how trading fees would be deducted from customer accounts. At the same time, the Court Order found, the Hongs and Pishon failed to tell customers that Laurence Hong had been imprisoned previously for 33 months in connection with wire fraud charges.

In a parallel criminal case filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, Laurence Hong and Grace Hong pleaded guilty on March 27, 2018 and March 30, 2018, respectively, to multiple criminal counts. See Case No. CR17-163TSZ. On October 11, 2018, Laurence Hong was sentenced to a 180-month prison term and Grace Hong was sentenced to a 72-month prison term. The court ordered that the defendants also pay restitution in the criminal matter. In recognition of the prior restitution award in the criminal matter, Judge Pechman ordered that the defendants may offset their civil restitution obligation with payments in the criminal matter on a one-to-one basis.

The CFTC cautions victims that restitution orders may not result in the recovery of money lost because the wrongdoers may not have sufficient funds or assets. The CFTC will continue to fight vigorously for the protection of customers and to ensure the wrongdoers are held accountable.

The Division of Enforcement thanks the United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington and the FBI for their invaluable assistance and cooperation.

The CFTC Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this case are Kevin Samuel, Ilana Waxman, Kim Bruno, Alison Wilson, and Rick Glaser.

CFTC Charges Proprietary Trader with Spoofing in Soybean Futures Markets

February 6, 2019 by industryspread Leave a Comment Filed Under: Regulatory Annoucements Tagged: CFTC, CFTC Division of Enforcement, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME group, proprietary trader, Soybean Futures Markets, Spoof Orders, Spoofing Task Force

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today issued an Order filing and settling charges against Kevin Crepeau, of Chicago, Illinois, a trader at a proprietary trading firm, for engaging in spoofing in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) soybean futures markets.

James McDonald, CFTC’s Director of Enforcement, said, “As this case shows, we will continue to work tirelessly to preserve the integrity of our markets, and to protect those who rely on them to hedge their business risk – like the farmers and ranchers who participated in the agricultural markets at issue here. In pursuing this goal, we will continue to work closely with our regulatory and law enforcement partners, as we did in this case.”

The CFTC Order requires Crepeau, among other things, to pay a $120,000 civil monetary penalty, and imposes a four-month suspension from trading on all registered entities and in all commodity interests.

The CFTC Order finds that between August 2013 and June 2016, Crepeau placed orders to buy or sell futures contracts on soybeans, soybean meal, and soybean oil with the intent to cancel the orders before execution. According to the Order, Crepeau used an automated tool to place relatively small bids or offers on one side of the market (Genuine Orders) and Crepeau manually placed relatively large bids or offers on the opposite side of the market (Spoof Orders). Crepeau placed the Spoof Orders with the intent to induce other market participants to fill his Genuine Orders on the opposite side of the market and cancelled the Spoof Orders after the Genuine Orders had been filled. The Order finds that Crepeau repeated this trading pattern numerous times.

The CFTC’s investigation was conducted in conjunction with a related inquiry by the CME Group, which today also announced a disciplinary action against Crepeau. The CFTC thanks CME Group for its assistance in this matter.

This case is brought in connection with the CFTC Division of Enforcement’s Spoofing Task Force, and the staff members responsible for this case are John Buffington, Christine Ryall, and Paul Hayeck.

CFTC Commissioner Says Big Banks Dominate SEF’s

January 29, 2019 by Michael Volpe Leave a Comment Filed Under: Feature Articles Tagged: CFTC, CFTC Commissioner, Commodity Markets Council, Dan Berkovitz, SEFs, swap

The Commodities Futures Trading Commission Commissioner Dan Berkovitz made a speech at the Commodity Markets Council State of the Industry for 2019; the speech was entitled “Competition, Concentration, and Cartels in the Swap Market.”

Dan Berkovitz

Berkovitz emphasized the importance of healthy and competitive markets in swaps.

“Free market principles are a cornerstone of the derivatives markets. One of the longstanding purposes of the Commodity Exchange Act is to ‘promote fair competition.’ In the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress applied the principles of open markets and fair competition to swaps trading. The Act requires swap execution facilities, or ‘SEFs,’ to provide all market participants with impartial access to the market and enable them to trade with many other market participants.”

Continuing on, he argued that healthy markets are threatened because SEFs are concentrated in a few large and powerful banks.

“Today, the swap market is concentrated in a few large bank dealers. A review of data from the swap data repositories shows that the largest five dealing institutions are party to about 70% of all reported swap transactions and 80% of the notional amount traded.” Berkovitz said. “Our futures commission merchant data shows that five bank FCMs provide clearing for about 80% of cleared swaps. These high levels of concentration show that the largest dealers possess considerable market power. These high levels of concentration also present potential systemic risks, since the failure of one of these firms in a highly interconnected market could have significant impacts on the other firms in the market.”

Berkovitz said that in November 2018 the CFTC voted in favor of a proposal which he felt would stifle competition; Berkovitz voted against the proposal.

According to the federal registrar, here is a summary of the proposed rule.

“Among other amendments, the proposed rules apply the SEF registration requirement to certain swaps broking entities and aggregators of single-dealer platforms; broaden the scope of the trade execution requirement to include all swaps subject to the clearing requirement under the Act that a SEF or a DCM lists for trading; allow SEFs to offer flexible execution methods for all swaps that they list for trading; amend straight-through processing requirements; and amend the block trade definition.”

Later on in the speech, Berkovitz stated why he opposed the rule.

“The Proposal would allow SEFs to create exclusive markets for swap dealers. What I call the Proposal’s ‘exclusionary access’ provision would perpetuate and strengthen the current two-tier market structure for cleared swaps. In one tier end-users and proprietary traders buy from or sell swaps to dealers. In the other tier, dealers trade with each other exclusively and lay off the risks from their swaps at prices that only dealers can access.

“Without access to the highly liquid dealer-only market, non-dealers cannot price swaps to end-users as efficiently as the dealers. As a practical matter, under this structure only dealers can economically and efficiently offer cleared swaps to end-users.

“The Proposal also would repeal the method-of-execution rules that require request-for-quote, known as ‘RFQ,’ and order book trading systems for liquid swaps that are made available to trade on a SEF. The Proposal provides no evidence to support its claim that allowing ‘flexible methods of execution’ will benefit end users. The Proposal fails to identify any trading method that can or will provide lower costs to end users than the RFQ method. I will say more about this later.

“In the absence of any constraints, the dealers undoubtedly will push trading with non-dealers to less transparent single-dealer platforms and platforms that only allow one-to-one trading where there is no direct, real-time price competition with other dealers. Today, everyone can trade commodities, stocks, and futures with a wide variety of other participants on open, all-to-all platforms where competitive prices from multiple prospective buyers and sellers are posted.”

CFTC has Surprising Spoofing Rules

January 21, 2019 by Michael Volpe Leave a Comment Filed Under: Feature Articles Tagged: brokerage, CFTC, CFTC Regulations, commodities broker, derivatives, economy, Financial markets, risk management, SEC, trading platform

The Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) can charge a firm with violating spoofing related statutes even if no spoofing occurred.

The Futures Industry Association held its latest webinar entitled: “Spoofing, Surveillance, & Supervision.”

Attorneys from the law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP made the presentation and noted that CFTC’s statute states that a firm can be charged with a spoofing violation if the firm did not properly supervise its traders, even if none engaged in spoofing.

The CFTC rule states, “Evidence of violations that ‘should be detected by a diligent system of supervision, either because of the nature of the violations or because the violations have occurred repeatedly’ is probative of a failure to supervise,” according to a slide in the webinar.

The rule departs from that of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which requires spoofing to occur before a firm can also be charged with a failure to supervise.

“Unlike the SEC’s rule on failure to supervise, which requires an underlying substantive violation in order to establish a failure to supervise,” the slide continued.

Spoofing occurs when a trader places orders which are not executed but are placed simply to drive the price of a security in a certain direction.

The anti-spoofing statute was part of the Dodd/Frank bill passed in 2010.

Furthermore, the exchanges followed with their own anti-spoofing rules, which the attorneys said largely mirrored that of the CFTC’s anti-spoofing statute.

The CME rule states, “Prohibits (among other actions) entering an order with the intent at the time of order entry, to cancel the order before execution or to modify the order to avoid execution,” according to another slide.

The ICE exchange “does not require the intent at the time of order entry only entering an order with the intent to cancel it,” according to the same slide.

The exchanges, the CME, ICE, and others, are also referred to as self-regulatory organizations (SRO).

This is because it is required by the SEC and the CFTC that all approved exchanges have a separate regulatory arm.

As such, a trader engaged in spoofing can face penalties not only from the exchange where the trades occurred but also with the regulatory body.

This occurred with 3 Red Trading, which was covered in the webinar.

Their principal, Igor Oystacher, was not only fined by the CME but also by the CFTC, for his spoofing activities.

The attorneys also noted that the CFTC has been touting their non-prosecution agreements, as a means of encouraging traders involved in spoofing to come forward and expose their firms.

For instance, in July 2017, the CFTC entered into a non-prosecution agreement with three traders from Citigroup Global Markets; while the traders were named, they were spared punishment while the firm was fined $25 million.

“The message sent appears to perhaps incentivize traders being investigated for spoofing to point at their firm for failing to train and supervise them regarding spoofing.” Another slide noted.

While that is one way to look at it, this incentive can also be viewed as encouraging criminal behavior.

Law enforcement has a long history of making deals with criminals whose crimes are forgiven for their cooperation against another criminal.

In one notorious case, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano served only five years in jail despite admitting to involvement in nineteen murders in exchange for testifying against John Gotti.

While spoofing is not nearly as serious as murders, traders who rat on their firms in exchange for leniency do have their criminal activity wiped out as well.

Shutdown Shuts Down Securities Regulators

January 13, 2019 by Michael Volpe Leave a Comment Filed Under: Feature Articles Tagged: CFTC, FINRA, Fraudsters, JOBS Act, Maxine Waters, SEC, securities regulators

The government shutdown is affecting securities regulators.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has furloughed approximately 94% of their employees while the government has been shut down.

Newly minted House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters, a Democrat from the State of California, made note of it in a recent speech on the House floor.

“This President has all but closed the doors of the SEC, furloughing 94% of the agency and essentially providing fraudsters and schemers with a free pass to swindle investors and small businesses. With such a skeleton crew of less than 300 staff, the SEC cannot possibly oversee the activities of the over 26,000 registered entities, such as investment advisers, broker-dealers, and stock exchanges. Worse, the SEC is unable to hold bad actors accountable through most enforcement actions, preventing harmed investors from obtaining relief.

“But the importance of the SEC goes beyond ensuring the rule of law. Businesses that are looking to enter the public stock markets may have to delay their Initial Public Offerings because the SEC cannot approve their documents. Businesses seeking guidance from the SEC are left in legal limbo until the SEC can get back to work.

Maxine Waters

“The Trump shutdown is jeopardizing the integrity of our financial markets and the hard-earned savings of millions of Americans. So, let’s end this Trump shutdown and open the government so that the SEC and other agencies can get back to work on behalf of the public.”

The US government has been shut down to all but essential services since December 22, 2019, when the President, the Republicans, and Democrats could not agree on a budget moving forward.

With no more money allocated, all but the most essential government services are shut down as well.

This includes the SEC.

Waters continued in the speech: “Mr. Speaker and Members, I appreciate some of the comments that have been made about the fact that we have been able to work together on both sides of the aisle on the Financial Services Committee, working on such things as the JOBS Act but we can’t do any of that. We cannot move. We cannot get to work for the American people because this President not only has shut down the government, but he took responsibility for it.

“He wanted everybody to know that he did it, that he not only did it, but he’s going to continue to do it until he can bend us to his will and give him $5 billion dollars plus to put up a wall of some kind. We don’t even know what it is.”

The SEC is not the only trading regulator hit; according to the website, Pensions and Investments, approximately 90% of employees at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) will also be furloughed.

FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, is a self-regulatory organization, and not a part of the government- though it maintains government functions- and is not affected by the shutdown.

Exness Adds Nicholas Shamtanis as its New Chief Sales Officer, Will be Based Out of Company’s Kuala Lumpur Officer

January 7, 2019 by Karthik Subramanian Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: brokerage, Capital Markets, CFTC, easyMarkets, economy, Exness, financial institutions, financial services, FX, investment, trading platform

Exness, the retail forex broker has secured Nicolas Shamtanis as its new Chief Sales Officer (CSO), this month. The announcement was made public by Nicholas through his LinkedIn profile.

This new position will see Nicolas Shamtanis relocate to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and will look after the broker’s Asia Pacific Region. Mr. Shamtanis was based in Cyprus in his entire career. He has joined Exness on January 2nd, 2019, and is currently working from Limassol and will soon relocate to Kuala Lumpur.

Brokerages based in Europe are now more focusing on expanding its footprint to Asia Pacific region and other regions due to stiff regulatory conditions back home which is limiting its growth. Mr. Shamtanis joins Exness from easyMarkets, a CySEC regulated broker. He had worked with easyMarkets for more than a decade, starting his tenure at Jube 2007. He originally joined the firm as Senior Dealer and has held important senior roles including Chief Business Development Officer, Chief Client Retention Officer, and varied sales-based roles.

Nicholas Shamtanis has studied and graduated from Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm, a university in Nuremberg, Germany from 2001 to 2006. He has obtained a degree in International Business with a focus on Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services.

Exness has strong exposure in the Asia Pacific region with its entry in the Chinese market, some ten years back, and Mr. Shamantis appointment as CSO in Kuala Lumpur signifies how the broker deepens its presence in the region.

Pre IPO Swap Appoints Joseph Gelet as Chief Technology Officer

The US-based Investment firm, Pre IPO swap has announced the appointment of Joseph Gelet as the company’s Chief Technology Officer. The appointment has been made effective immediately his responsibilities include oversight of Pre IPO Swap’s infrastructure technology and a senior role in vision and strategy.

Joseph will be working closely with the company’s client base which includes accredited investors only to deliver long-term value to their investments. He is joining the firm from Bloc10 Tech, a blockchain development firm founded by wall street companies.

Prior to this role, Joseph Gelet has served as President of Elite E Services FX which develops FX strategies and technologies. He joined the firm in 2002 and has served many important positions in different business segments including managed accounts, investment services, quantitative systems, and FX advisory services.

Gelet has also worked with Fortress Capital, an asset management company with over $40 billion assets under management. He joined Fortress in 2015 as Vice President of its Forex division.

Pre IPO Swap offers institutional investors early access to privately traded shares in established companies before they go public.