The CFTC obtained a federal court Consent Order against Tunney Associates, P.C. ("T&A"), an accounting firm, and its sole owner, requiring T&A and its owner to pay a $100,000 civil monetary penalty for violating CFTC Rules when conducting audits for a CFTC-registered futures commission merchant ("FCM"). The Order stems from a CFTC complaint filed April 18, 2013, that charged T&A and its owner with conducting year-end audits for the FCM that did not follow Generally Accepted Auditing Standards or CFTC Rules, and for failing to report material inadequacies to the CFTC when required to do so. The

In January 2014, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("ANPR") soliciting comments on various issues related to physical commodity activities conducted by financial holding companies, including the risks that such activities pose to the safety and soundness of depository institutions and the financial system generally. The activities covered by the ANPR included physical commodities activities that have been found to be "complementary to a financial activity" under section 4(k)(1)(B) of the Bank Holding Company Act ("BHC

Linked below is an article featured in the Energy Metro Desk series, "Around the Desk," which provides a summary of recent market news. The article discusses, among other things, a presentation by Deputy Director of the CFTC Division of Market Oversight ("DMO"), Matthew Hunter. Mr. Hunter's presentation was notable for its unequivocal claim that DMO is capable of catching those who violate the law, in spite of the CFTC's shortcomings in its data management and market monitoring efforts. Click here to view the article. The above link is an excerpt from the most recent issue of Energy Metro Desk

University of Houston Finance Professor Craig Pirrong published a white paper titled, "The Economics of Commodity Trading Firms," which presents the economic role of the commodities trading sector, how it manages risk and financing, how it is governed, and the factors driving commodity trading firms' investment strategies. The paper concludes that commodity trading firms transform commodities in space, time, and form in order to enhance their value. According to the paper, in moving commodities from low-value uses to high-value ones, commodity trading firms enhance the wealth and welfare of

Any optimism produced by last week's Geneva agreement has dissipated, as hostilities grew and violence flared in eastern Ukraine following a brief Easter truce. Meanwhile, in the midst of the increasing instability in eastern Ukraine, Russia this week renewed military maneuvers across the border, and the country's foreign minister announced that Moscow would be forced to intervene in Ukraine if its "legitimate interests" were attacked. By late Friday, concerns of violence were mounting. Turza Comment: To date, the United States and the European Union have largely limited their response to