CFTC v. Jiongsheng Zhao (spoofing, 2018)

Settled

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In January 2018 the CFTC charged Australian trader Jiongsheng Zhao with spoofing in the E-mini S&P 500 futures market in the Northern District of Illinois. On June 4, 2021 the court entered a consent order requiring $21,000 in disgorgement, a five-year trading ban and a cease-and-desist undertaking, resolving the CFTC's complaint.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$21k

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$21k

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 January 29, 2018 as release 7688-18. The respondents named are Jiongsheng Zhao (1 individual, 0 entities). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois.

This library tags the matter as spoofing, 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.

The conduct is recorded against futures, with CME identified in the release.

The release references a parallel criminal proceeding. Where a criminal case exists, the civil and criminal outcomes are recorded separately, because they resolve on different standards of proof.

The CFTC announced on June 11, 2021 that the court had entered a consent order on June 4, 2021 resolving the complaint. The order finds, on Zhao's consent, that from July 2012 to March 2017 he repeatedly placed orders he wanted filled and larger opposite-side orders he meant to cancel. It bars him from trading commodity interests for five years, imposes $21,000 in disgorgement and orders him to stop violating the spoofing and manipulation prohibitions. The release adds that Zhao had pleaded guilty to one count of spoofing in a parallel criminal case and was sentenced on February 4, 2020; it does not state the length of that sentence, so none is recorded. No civil penalty is stated.

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. 2021-06-04 Consent order entered: five-year trading ban and $21,000 disgorgement

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 8395-21 on the consent order (11 June 2021)
• Consent order, N.D. Ill. 1:18-cv-00620 (filed 4 June 2021)

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.