CFTC v. James Vorley and Cedric Chanu (spoofing, 2018)

Settled

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In January 2018 the CFTC charged precious metals traders James Vorley and Cedric Chanu in Illinois with spoofing. A CFTC release of April 7, 2022 reports final judgments and consent orders imposing a $150,000 penalty on each and five-year trading and registration bans.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$300k

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$300k

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 CFTC announced this matter on January 29, 2018 as release 7686-18, in the Northern District of Illinois, alleging spoofing in precious metals futures. A parallel criminal matter was referenced in the original record.

Outcome: CFTC release 8511-22 (April 7, 2022) says Judge Steven Seeger issued final judgments and consent orders against both men, each paying a $150,000 civil penalty, with a five-year ban from trading on registered entities and from registering with the CFTC and a cease-and-desist requirement. It says the orders find that from about July 2011 to July 2013 they placed orders for COMEX gold, silver, platinum or palladium futures they intended to cancel. The penalty stored is the sum for both men. The release does not state the date the orders were entered, so the release date is used, and it does not discuss the criminal matter.

This library tags the matter as spoofing, based on the conduct the regulator describes. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2018-01-29 CFTC release published
2. 2022-04-07 CFTC announces final judgments and consent orders against Vorley and Chanu

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
• CFTC press release 8511-22 (consent orders)

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.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.