A federal jury convicted a former trader at JPMorgan Chase Christopher Jordan today of fraud in connection with a spoofing scheme in the gold and silver futures markets. He was an executive director and trader on JPMorgan’s precious metals desk in New York from 2006 to 2009, and on Credit Suisse’s precious metals desk in New York in 2010. According to the Government, Between 2008 and 2010, Jordan placed thousands of spoof orders, that he intended to cancel before execution, to drive prices upi and more favorable to orders he intended to execute on the opposite side of the market. Jordan did this while trading gold and silver futures contracts on the Commodity Exchange (COMEX), which is a commodities exchange operated by the CME Group. These deceptive orders were intended to inject false and misleading information about the genuine supply and demand for gold and silver futures contracts into the markets.Jordan was convicted of wire fraud affecting a financial institution. He is scheduled to be sentenced at a later date and faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

In September 2020, JPMorgan admitted to committing wire fraud in connection with (1) unlawful trading in the markets for precious metals futures contracts and (2) unlawful trading in the markets for U.S. Treasury futures contracts and in the secondary (cash) market for U.S. Treasury notes and bonds. JPMorgan entered into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement pursuant to which it paid more than $920 million in criminal monetary penalties, criminal disgorgement, and victim compensation, with parallel resolutions by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities Exchange Commission announced on the same day.

Jeffrey Newman is a whistleblower lawyer with the firm Jeff Newman Law and he can be reached at jeff@jeffnewmanlaw.com or at 978-880-4758