The successful enforcement actions were not based on conduct about which the alleged whistleblower provided specific credible and timely information.
On appeal, the District of Columbia has affirmed the final orders of the CFTC which denied a whistleblower award after determining that despite the appellant’s argument that the denial of his application was arbitrary and capricious, the successful enforcement actions were not based on conduct about which he provided specific credible and timely information (Kitchen v. CFTC, No. 25-1098 (D.D.C. June 5, 2026)).
FX trading. The appellant traded within the foreign currency exchange (FX) market for many years. The most common type of FX instrument is “spot” trading, which involves “immediate delivery of and payment for the product.” The exchange rate at any given moment is the “spot price.” In addition to setting the rate for real-time transactions, spot prices are used to determine (or “fix”) “benchmarks” on which traders base the valuation of other instruments in the FX market.
Whistleblower information. From 2008 to 2011, the appellant used an FX trading platform operated by the Oanda Corporation (Oanda) to conduct his transactions. Through his account, the appellant traded the USD, GBP and euro (EUR) against the Swiss franc (CHF) thousands of times. In August 2011, the appellant allegedly “observed a precipitous drop in the values of the GBP, USD, and EUR relative to the CHF” and thought “that the size of the drop in the...
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