CFTC v. Emilio José Heredia Collado (price manipulation, 2021)

Settled

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In March 2021 the CFTC issued an order settling charges against former fuel oil trader Emilio José Heredia Collado for attempted manipulation and manipulation of a U.S. price-assessment benchmark for physical fuel oil from 2012 to 2016. He admitted the facts, received a permanent trading ban and a $100,000 penalty, and entered a cooperation agreement; he also pleaded guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$100k

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$100k

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 25, 2021 as release 8370-21. The respondent named is Emilio José Heredia Collado (1 individual, 0 entities). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.

The order finds Heredia, at two trading firms, manipulated the benchmark with specific intent to benefit the firms' trading positions and created artificial prices. A parallel criminal charge was filed the same day. This library tags the matter as price manipulation.

The relief recorded in our data is a civil monetary penalty of $100,000. 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.

The release references a parallel criminal proceeding. Where a criminal case exists, the civil and criminal outcomes are recorded separately, because they resolve on different standards of proof.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2021-03-25 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. submit a correction.