CFTC v. Chinese National (insider trading, 2023)

Settled

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In March 2023 the CFTC charged Dichao Xie, a China-based quantitative trader, with using his employer's confidential information to trade feeder cattle futures and options against it. On September 26, 2023 the court entered a consent order requiring $175,772.40 of disgorgement and an equal civil penalty, with five-year trading and registration bans.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$176k

Disgorgement

$176k

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$352k

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 March 28, 2023 as release 8682-23. The respondents named are Chinese National (1 individual, 0 entities). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois.

This library tags the matter as insider trading, 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.

Outcome: the CFTC announced on September 27, 2023 that the Northern District of Illinois had entered a consent order against Dichao Xie, a resident of China, the day before. The order finds that between about December 2021 and April 2022 Xie, a quantitative trader at a multinational company, used material non-public information about his employer's feeder cattle futures and options positions to trade against it in at least 71 transactions, many of them fictitious or noncompetitive. It permanently enjoins him from further violations as charged, requires him to disgorge $175,772.40 and pay a civil monetary penalty of the same amount, and imposes five-year trading and registration bans. The order is a settlement and the findings are those of the consent order.

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.

• Insider trading — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2023-03-28 CFTC release published
2. 2023-09-26 Consent order entered (N.D. Ill.): injunction, disgorgement, civil penalty, five-year trading and registration bans

Primary documents

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

• CFTC release
• CFTC order or complaint
• CFTC press release on consent order
• Consent order against Dichao Xie

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.

Related actions

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.