FCA v. Daniel James Plunkett (banging the close, 2014)

Settled

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 3, 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 (fca-daniel-james-plunkett-individual-banging-the-close-2014) by email

In May 2014 the FCA fined former Barclays precious metals director Daniel Plunkett £95,600 and banned him, finding he placed orders in the 28 June 2012 gold fixing to push the price below a barrier on a digital option his own book was short.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

Penalty as published

£95.6k

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. This regulator states penalties in GBP. The figure is recorded as published and is not converted, so it does not appear in the USD totals or medians used elsewhere on this site.

What is alleged to have happened

The Financial Conduct Authority issued this final notice on 23 May 2014 after Plunkett settled early and took a 30 per cent discount from a £136,600 penalty.

The notice finds that Plunkett priced and risk-managed a digital option sold to a customer that paid USD3.9m if gold fixed above USD1,558.96 in the 3:00 p.m. London Gold Fixing on 28 June 2012. During that fixing he placed orders intended to make a fix below the barrier more likely, which is what happened, and his book gained about USD1.75m. He then gave Barclays and the FCA an untruthful account. The FCA found breaches of Statements of Principle 1 and 3.

This library tags the matter as banging the close because the conduct was trading inside a fixing window to move a price that a larger position referenced. The FCA did not charge a submission-based benchmark offence, since the gold fixing was set from traded orders, not panel submissions. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's.

The FCA also prohibited him from performing any function in regulated activities.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2014-05-23 FCA final notice

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• FCA final notice

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. 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.