CFTC v. Jitesh Thakkar and Edge Financial Technologies (spoofing, 2018)

Settled

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In January 2018 the CFTC charged software developer Jitesh Thakkar and Edge Financial Technologies, Inc. with aiding and abetting spoofing by building custom trading software. On September 14, 2020 the court entered a consent order against Edge requiring $24,200 in disgorgement and a $48,400 penalty, and the CFTC's agreed motion proposed dismissing its claims against Thakkar personally.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$48.4k

Disgorgement

$24.2k

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$72.6k

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 January 29, 2018 as release 7689-18. The respondents named are Jitesh Thakkar and Edge Financial Technologies (1 individual, 1 entity). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois.

This library tags the matter as spoofing, 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 futures, with CME identified in the release.

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.

In an agreed motion filed on August 13, 2020 the CFTC asked the Northern District of Illinois to enter a consent order against Edge Financial Technologies and, under Rule 41(a)(2), an order dismissing its case against Thakkar, stating that together these would resolve all aspects of the case. The court's consent order, entered September 14, 2020, finds Edge liable for the trader's spoofing violations as an aider and abettor, orders disgorgement of $24,200 and a civil monetary penalty of $48,400, and bars Edge from selling the custom application or any software containing the same function. The dismissal order for Thakkar was filed as a separate exhibit that was not itself read, so the dismissal of the claims against him rests on the CFTC's motion. The money figures are Edge's.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2018-01-29 CFTC release published
2. 2020-08-13 CFTC files agreed motion for consent order against Edge and dismissal of Thakkar
3. 2020-09-14 Court enters consent order against Edge Financial Technologies

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 agreed motion for consent order and dismissal of Thakkar, 13 August 2020 (copy on CCH)
• Consent order against Edge Financial Technologies, 14 September 2020

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.