CFTC v. Matthew Clark (insider trading, 2026)

Settled

✓ 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-matthew-clark-insider-trading-2026) by email

In February 2026 a federal court entered a consent order against Matthew Clark of Houston on CFTC claims of misappropriating confidential information and taking illegal kickbacks to defraud his employer. He pays $7.7 million in restitution and $6.5 million in disgorgement and is permanently banned. He also pleaded guilty in a parallel criminal case and was sentenced to six and a half years.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$6.5m

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$6.5m

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 the consent order on February 2, 2026 as release 9178-26; the complaint had been filed in February 2022.

The order resolves claims of misappropriating confidential information and directing business in exchange for kickbacks in schemes against his employer. It requires $7,709,509 in restitution, representing the employer's loss from the kickback scheme, and $6,532,360 in disgorgement of his gains from both schemes, and permanently bans him from trading and CFTC registration.

In a parallel prosecution brought in February 2022 on the same conduct, with counts of conspiracy involving honest services fraud, insider trading and unlawful commodities trades, he pleaded guilty and in June 2024 was sentenced to 78 months in prison. The earlier record listed $14 million as a civil penalty; that figure is the sum of the restitution and disgorgement, and the order imposes no separate penalty.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2026-02-02 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 20, 2026. submit a correction.