CFTC v. Eric Moncada, BES Capital LLC and Serdika LLC (price manipulation, 2014)

Judgment entered

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In October 2014 the CFTC announced a consent order in the Southern District of New York against Eric Moncada for attempting to manipulate CBOT wheat futures on eight days in October 2009 by entering and cancelling large orders he never meant to fill, and for fictitious sales, imposing a $1.56 million penalty and trading bans. His firms BES Capital and Serdika were earlier ordered by default to pay $32.24 million.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$1.6m

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$1.6m

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 October 2, 2014 as release 7026-14. The respondents named are Eric Moncada, BES Capital LLC and Serdika LLC (1 individual, 2 entities). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

The order finds Moncada entered and immediately cancelled large-lot wheat orders to create a false impression of liquidity and then traded on the other side; the court had also granted summary judgment on fictitious sales and non-competitive transactions. This library tags the matter as price manipulation, spoofing and wash trading.

The conduct is recorded against futures, with CBOT identified in the release.

The relief recorded in our data is a civil monetary penalty of $1.6 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 3 techniques 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2014-10-01 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.

• CFTC release

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.