CFTC v. Fan Zhang (matched orders, 2014)

Judgment entered

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In September 2014, the CFTC settled charges against Fan Zhang, ordering a US$250,000 penalty and a five-year trading ban for prearranged trades that moved over US$200,000 of profits from an investment club account to his mother's account.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$250k

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$250k

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 this matter on September 29, 2014 as release 7019-14. The respondents named are Fan Zhang (1 individual, 0 entities).

The order finds, and Zhang admits, that on one day in December 2012 and several in March 2013 he placed matching buy and sell orders in CME housing and cheese futures and a CBOT ethanol contract between two accounts, one belonging to an investment club half-owned by him and the other to his mother, to move profits to her account without her knowledge. The accounts had different owners, so we classify this as matched orders (a money pass) rather than wash trading.

This library tags the matter as matched orders, based on the conduct the regulator describes. Each tag links to a page explaining how that technique works, what statute it engages, and what penalties comparable actions have attracted. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

A $250,000 civil monetary penalty and a five-year trading ban.

Zhang consented to the order and admitted the facts.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2014-09-29 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.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.