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CFTC v. Brian Hunter (price manipulation, 2014)

Judgment entered

Machine-extracted, pending human review. The structured fields on this page were parsed automatically from the regulator's own release, linked below. Read the primary document before relying on any figure here, and tell us if something is wrong.

In 2014, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission obtained a judgment against Brian Hunter, alleging conduct this library classifies as price manipulation. The release records a civil penalty of $7.5 million.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency CFTC
Release number 7000-14
Date filed 2014-09-16
Date resolved 2014-09-16
Court U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
Status judgment
Asset class commodities, futures
Venue NYMEX
Criminal parallel No
Defendants Brian Hunter (individual)
Techniques Price manipulation

What was ordered

Civil penalty
$7.5m
Disgorgement
Prejudgment interest
Total relief
$7.5m
Alleged gain

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced this matter on September 16, 2014 as release 7000-14. The respondents named are Brian Hunter (1 individual, 0 entities). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

This library tags the matter as price manipulation, based on the conduct the regulator describes. Each tag links to a page explaining how that technique works, what statute it engages, and what penalties comparable actions have attracted. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

The conduct is recorded against commodities and futures, with NYMEX identified in the release.

The relief recorded in our data is a civil monetary penalty of $7.5 million. Penalty and disgorgement are distinct: disgorgement returns the gain, while the penalty is punitive. We store them separately so that aggregate figures across the library are not double-counted.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

Timeline

  1. 2014-09-16 CFTC release published

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Action Agency Filed Technique Penalty Status
CFTC v. George Santos (price manipulation, 2026) CFTC 2026-07-31 Price Manipulation $35k judgment
CFTC v. Swiss Energy Trader (price manipulation, 2024) CFTC 2024-08-27 Price Manipulation $48m judgment
CFTC v. Trafigura (insider trading, 2024) CFTC 2024-06-17 Insider Trading , Price Manipulation $55m judgment
SEC v. Ronald Heineman (price manipulation, 2024) SEC 2024-04-03 Price Manipulation judgment
SEC v. Marc E. Wexler (price manipulation, 2023) SEC 2023-12-05 Price Manipulation , Pump And Dump judgment
CFTC v. HSBC Bank USA (cash vs derivatives schemes, 2023) CFTC 2023-11-07 Cash Vs Derivatives Schemes , Insider Trading +2 $1.7bn filed

Record added September 8, 2026. submit a correction.