CFTC v. Christophe Rivoire (price manipulation, 2019)

Alleged — pending

These are allegations. CFTC has filed an action; nothing in it has been proven, and the respondents have not been found liable. Everything described on this page is what the regulator alleges, not what a court has found. See our editorial policy.

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 2, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

Report an error in this record (cftc-executive-at-global-investment-bank-price-manipulation-2019) by email

In December 2019 the CFTC charged Christophe Rivoire, a former head of North American rates at a global investment bank, in the Southern District of New York with directing a trader to push broker-screen prices for five-year basis swaps down in June and July 2012 so that a related swap with a bond issuer would be more profitable to the bank. The matter is an allegation.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

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 December 20, 2019 as release 8099-19. The respondent named is Christophe Rivoire (1 individual, 0 entities). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

The complaint alleges Rivoire told a trader to push the screen before pricing, enlisted an interdealer broker, and told the issuer the bank was not controlling the screen. The CFTC seeks penalties, disgorgement, restitution and bans. This library tags the matter as price manipulation.

Non-monetary relief recorded: trading ban.

This matter is at the allegation stage. Nothing in the regulator's filing has been proven, and the respondents are entitled to the presumption that it has not been. This page will be updated if the matter is resolved, dismissed or withdrawn.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2019-12-20 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
• CFTC order or complaint

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. If this matter has since resolved, been withdrawn or been dismissed, we want to know: submit a correction.