CFTC v. Defendant Nikolai S. Battoo (2016)

Judgment entered

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.

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In January 2016 the CFTC announced a default judgment against Nikolai Battoo and three BC Capital companies for fraud in connection with commodity pools, requiring $294,246,741.63 in restitution, a $147 million civil monetary penalty and $49 million of disgorgement.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	CFTC
Release number	7306-16
Date filed	2016-01-13
Date resolved	2016-01-13
Court	U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois
Status	judgment
Criminal parallel	No
Defendants	Nikolai S. Battoo (individual) ; BC Capital Group S.A. (entity) ; BC Capital Group International Limited (entity) ; BC Capital Group Holdings S.A. (entity)
Techniques

What was ordered

Civil penalty: $147m
Disgorgement: $49m
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: $196m
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 order finds that the defendants misrepresented significant losses in the Private International Wealth Management pools: in 2008 they did not disclose the pools' exposure to the Madoff Ponzi scheme or losses in other Battoo funds, in 2009 they overstated the value of the pools' investments, and in 2011 they overstated the effect of the MF Global bankruptcy to explain why money could not be returned. It imposes permanent trading and registration bans.

The money figures are correct. The Ponzi scheme in the document is Madoff's, in which the pools had exposure; the order does not find that Battoo ran one.

No technique tag is applied; no existing slug fits misstated pool performance and valuations.

Timeline

2016-01-13 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

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.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.