Ex-Amaranth Trader, CFTC Unite to Ask Court to Toss Fine By Tom Schoenberg & Brian Wingfield Feb 7, 2013 A former natural-gas trader at Amaranth Advisors LLC, backed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, asked a federal appeals court to overturn a $30 million fine imposed by another regulator over alleged manipulation of the gas-futures market. In a case that could determine the limits of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s power to punish market manipulation, a lawyer for Brian Hunter told a three-judge panel in Washington today that the CFTC has sole jurisdiction over futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The CFTC, which filed papers supporting Hunter, also argued today. “There was no notice, much less fair notice, to Brian Hunter that his conduct was being regulated by FERC,” Hunter’s lawyer, Michael Kim of Kobre & Kim LLP, said during the 40- minute argument. The dispute highlights FERC’s growing role as a regulatory enforcer. Congress beefed up the agency’s powers in 2005 to ensure order in the energy trading markets after Enron Corp. traders triggered California blackouts earlier in the decade. Since January 2011, the commission has publicly disclosed 13 investigations it has conducted of alleged market manipulation.... Read the rest here.
