Federal Reserve Said to Probe Banks Over Forex Fixing

The Federal Reserve is investigating whether traders at the world’s biggest banks rigged benchmark currency rates, raising the risk that firms will be penalized for lax controls as regulators look for wrongdoing.

The Fed, which supervises U.S. bank holding companies, is among authorities from London to Washington probing whether traders shared information that may have let them manipulate prices in the $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign-exchange market to maximize their profits, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter, asking not to be named because it’s confidential.

“The Fed has discretion whether to and how much to fine the banks if deficient controls or lack of supervision resulted in traders at these banks manipulating currency rates,” said Jacob S. Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor and now a lawyer at Shulman Rogers Gandal Pordy & Ecker PA in Potomac, Maryland.

The Fed punished firms for internal-control lapses last year as it worked with state and federal authorities on cases involving Iranian sanctions and botched derivatives bets. The foreign-exchange inquiry looks at benchmark WM/Reuters rates used by companies and investors around the world.

Those rates are determined by trades executed in a minute-long period called “the fix” at 4 p.m. in London each day. By concentrating orders in the moments before and during the 60-second window, traders can push the rate up or down, a process known in the industry as “banging the close.”

‘The Cartel’

Bloomberg News reported in June that traders at banks have been manipulating spot foreign-exchange rates for at least a decade, affecting the value of funds and derivatives. Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority, the Swiss Competition Commission and the U.S. Justice Department also are investigating.

At least a dozen banks have been contacted by authorities, and at least 12 currency traders have been suspended or put on leave. Companies including Lloyds Banking Group Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc have announced their own internal reviews of the matter.

Citigroup said last week it fired Rohan Ramchandani, who was head of European spot trading. Ramchandani was part of a message group other traders in the industry referred to as “The Cartel,” which is under investigation. He had been on leave from the New York-based firm for almost three months. Ramchandani didn’t respond to messages left on his mobile telephone, and his lawyer didn’t return a call to his office.

Potential Risks

Fed supervision focuses on potential risks to banks and assesses a firm’s ability to “identify, measure, monitor and control these risks,” according to the central bank’s website.

The regulator examines banks for weaknesses that could affect their safety and soundness or violate laws. If lapses are found, it can send a report to the company, issue an order, impose fines, remove officers or directors and bar them from the industry. Its oversight can include international operations of U.S. banks and the U.S. operations of foreign banks.

The Fed fined JPMorgan Chase & Co., the nation’s largest lender by assets, $200 million last year after a U.K. trader known as the London Whale for his outsized bets lost more than $6.2 billion on botched derivatives transactions. The regulator cited deficiencies in the New York-based company’s risk management and internal controls. JPMorgan paid more than $1 billion in fines tied to the trades, including settlements with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority.

Libor, ISDAfix

Other recent Fed enforcement actions include a $50 million penalty last month against RBS, which is based in Edinburgh. The Fed faulted the firm for inadequate risk management and legal-review policies that are needed to prevent transactions with countries subject to U.S. economic sanctions.

Authorities are looking for manipulation in a widening list of benchmark financial rates, including the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and ISDAfix, used to determine the value of interest-rate derivatives.

“Because foreign-exchange regulation is largely nonexistent, the task falls to the Fed to use its regulatory powers to ensure that the banks address all controls associated with currency trading,” Frenkel said.

November Meeting

Foreign-exchange dealers from the world’s biggest banks told the Federal Reserve Bank of New York the global probe into manipulation of currency rates could prompt an overhaul of the way they handle customer orders, minutes from the Nov. 13 meeting released by the central bank show.

Currency chiefs from banks including JPMorgan, London-based Barclays and Citigroup met with six officials from the New York Fed at a meeting of the Foreign Exchange Committee -- an industry group sponsored by the New York Fed -- according to minutes released by the group.

“Private sector members suggested that any investigations and/or supervisory activity related to this subject could eventually result in recommended changes to best practice guidance,” according to the minutes from the meeting, which was hosted by JPMorgan.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-13/federal-reserve-said-to-probe-banks-over-forex-fixing.html 

Minutes of Secretary of State Kissinger’s Principals and Regionals Staff Meeting

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1973–1976
VOLUME XXXI, FOREIGN ECONOMIC POLICY, DOCUMENT 63

---

63. Minutes of Secretary of State Kissinger’s Principals and Regionals Staff Meeting 1

Washington, April 25, 1974, 3:13–4:16 p.m.

[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to international monetary policy.]

Secretary Kissinger: Now we’ve got Enders, Lord and Hartman. They’ll speak separately or together. (Laughter.)

Mr. Hartman: A trio.

Mr. Lord: I can exhaust my knowledge of gold fairly quickly, I think.

Secretary Kissinger: Now, I had one deal with Shultz—never to discuss gold at this staff meeting—because his estimate of what would appear in the newspapers from staff meetings is about the same as mine.

Are you going to discuss something—is this now in the public discussion, what we’re discussing here?

Mr. Enders: It’s been very close to it. It’s been in the newspapers now—the EC proposal. 2

Secretary Kissinger: On what—revaluing their gold?

Mr. Enders: Revaluing their gold—in the individual transaction between the central banks. That’s been in the newspaper. The subject is, obviously, sensitive; but it’s not, I think, more than the usual degree of sensitivity about gold.

Secretary Kissinger: Now, what is our position?

Mr. Enders: You know what the EC proposal is.

Secretary Kissinger: Yes.

Mr. Enders: It does not involve a change in the official price of gold. It would allow purchases and sales to the private market, provided there was no net purchase from the private market by an individual central banker in a year. And then there would be individual sales between the central banks on—

Secretary Kissinger: How can they permit sale to the private market? Oh, and then they would buy from the private market?

Mr. Enders: Then they would buy.

Secretary Kissinger: But they wouldn’t buy more than they sold.

Mr. Enders: They wouldn’t buy more than they sold. There would be no net increase in gold held by the central banks that was held by the EEC. It could be held by others.

I’ve got two things to say about this, Mr. Secretary. One is: If it happens, as they proposed, it would be against our interests in these ways.

Secretary Kissinger: Have you accepted it or is this just a French proposal?

Mr. Enders: It’s an informal consensus that they’ve reached among themselves.

Secretary Kissinger: Were they discussed with us at all?

Mr. Enders: Not in a systematic way. They’re proposing to send over to Washington the Dutch Finance Minister and the Dutch Central Governor would talk to the Treasury.

Secretary Kissinger: What’s Arthur Burns’ view?

Mr. Enders: Arthur Burns—I talked to him last night on it, and he didn’t define a general view yet. He was unwilling to do so. He said he wanted to look more closely on the proposal. Henry Wallich, the international affairs man, this morning indicated he would probably adopt the traditional position that we should be for phasing gold out of the international monetary system; but he wanted to have another look at it. So Henry Wallich indicated that they would probably come down opposing this. But he was not prepared to do so until he got a further look at it.

Secretary Kissinger: But the practical consequence of this is to revalue their gold supply.

Mr. Enders: Precisely.

Secretary Kissinger: Their gold reserves.

Mr. Enders: That’s right. And it would be followed quite closely by a proposal within a year to have an official price of gold—

Secretary Kissinger: It doesn’t make any difference anyway. If they pass gold at the market price, that in effect establishes a new official price.

Mr. Enders: Very close to it—although their—

Secretary Kissinger: But if they ask what they’re doing—let me just say economics is not my forte. But my understanding of this proposal would be that they—by opening it up to other countries, they’re in effect putting gold back into the system at a higher price.

Mr. Enders: Correct.

Secretary Kissinger: Now, that’s what we have consistently opposed.

Mr. Enders: Yes, we have. You have convertibility if they—

Secretary Kissinger: Yes.

Mr. Enders: Both parties have to agree to this. But it slides towards and would result, within two or three years, in putting gold back into the centerpiece of the system—one. Two—at a much higher price. Three—at a price that could be determined by a few central bankers in deals among themselves.

So, in effect, I think what you’ve got here is you’ve got a small group of bankers getting together to obtain a money printing machine for themselves. They would determine the value of their reserves in a very small group.

There are two things wrong with this.

Secretary Kissinger: And we would be on the outside.

Mr. Enders: We could join this too, but there are only very few countries in the world that hold large amounts of gold—United States and Continentals being most of them. The LDC’s and most of the other countries—to include Japan—have relatively small amounts of gold. So it would be highly inflationary, on the one hand—and, on the other hand, a very inequitable means of increasing reserves.

Secretary Kissinger: Why did the Germans agree to it?

Mr. Enders: The Germans agreed to it, we’ve been told, on the basis that it would be discussed with the United States—conditional on United States approval.

Secretary Kissinger: They would be penalized for having held dollars.

Mr. Enders: They would be penalized for having held dollars. That probably doesn’t make very much difference to the Germans at the present time, given their very high reserves. However, I think that they may have come around to it on the basis that either we would oppose it—one—or, two, that they would have to pay up and finance the deficits of France and Italy by some means anyway; so why not let them try this proposal first?

The EC is potentially divided on this, however, and if enough pressure is put on them, these differences should reappear.

Secretary Kissinger: Then what’s our policy?

Mr. Enders: The policy we would suggest to you is that, (1), we refuse to go along with this—

Secretary Kissinger: I am just totally allergic to unilateral European decisions that fundamentally affect American interests—taken without consultation of the United States. And my tendency is to smash any attempt in which they do it until they learn that they can’t do it without talking to us.

That would be my basic instinct, apart from the merits of the issue.

Mr. Enders: Well, it seems to me there are two things here. One is that we can’t let them get away with this proposal because it’s for the reasons you stated. Also, it’s bad economic policy and it’s against our fundamental interests.

Secretary Kissinger: There’s also a fundamental change of our policy that we pursued over recent years—or am I wrong there?

Mr. Enders: Yes.

Secondly, Mr. Secretary, it does present an opportunity though—and we should try to negotiate for this—to move towards a demonetization of gold, to begin to get gold moving out of the system.

Secretary Kissinger: But how do you do that?

Mr. Enders: Well, there are several ways. One way is we could say to them that they would accept this kind of arrangement, provided that the gold were channelled out through an international agency—either in the IMF or a special pool—and sold into the market, so there would be gradual increases.

Secretary Kissinger: But the French would never go for this.

Mr. Enders: We can have a counter-proposal. There’s a further proposal—and that is that the IMF begin selling its gold—which is now 7 billion—to the world market, and we should try to negotiate that. That would begin the demonetization of gold.

Secretary Kissinger: Why are we so eager to get gold out of the system?

Mr. Enders: We were eager to get it out of the system—get started—because it’s a typical balancing of either forward or back. If this proposal goes back, it will go back into the centerpiece system.

Secretary Kissinger: But why is it against our interests? I understand the argument that it’s against our interest that the Europeans take a unilateral decision contrary to our policy. Why is it against our interest to have gold in the system?

Mr. Enders: It’s against our interest to have gold in the system because for it to remain there it would result in it being evaluated periodically. Although we have still some substantial gold holdings—about 11 billion—a larger part of the official gold in the world is concentrated in Western Europe. This gives them the dominant position in world reserves and the dominant means of creating reserves. We’ve been trying to get away from that into a system in which we can control—

Secretary Kissinger: But that’s a balance of payments problem.

Mr. Enders: Yes, but it’s a question of who has the most leverage internationally. If they have the reserve-creating instrument, by having the largest amount of gold and the ability to change its price periodically, they have a position relative to ours of considerable power. For a long time we had a position relative to theirs of considerable power because we could change gold almost at will. This is no longer possible—no longer acceptable. Therefore, we have gone to special drawing rights, which is also equitable and could take account of some of the LDC interests and which spreads the power away from Europe. And it’s more rational in—

Secretary Kissinger: “More rational” being defined as being more in our interests or what?

Mr. Enders: More rational in the sense of more responsive to worldwide needs—but also more in our interest by letting—

Secretary Kissinger: Would it shock you? I’ve forgotten how SDR’s are generated. By agreement?

Mr. Enders: By agreement.

Secretary Kissinger: There’s no automatic way?

Mr. Enders: There’s no automatic way.

Mr. Lord: Maybe some of the Europeans—but the LDC’s are on our side and would not support them.

Mr. Enders: I don’t think anybody would support them.

Secretary Kissinger: But could they do it anyway?

Mr. Enders: Yes. But in order for them to do it anyway, they would have to be in violation of important articles of the IMF. So this would not be a total departure. (Laughter.) But there would be reluctance on the part of some Europeans to do this. We could also make it less interesting for them by beginning to sell our own gold in the market, and this would put pressure on them.

Mr. Maw: Why wouldn’t that fit if we start to sell our own gold at a price?

Secretary Kissinger: But how the hell could this happen without our knowing about it ahead of time?

Mr. Hartman: We’ve had consultations on it ahead of time. Several of them have come to ask us to express our views. And I think the reason they’re coming now to ask about it is because they know we have a generally negative view.

Mr. Enders: So I think we should try to break it, I think, as a first position—unless they’re willing to assign some form of demonetizing arrangement.

Secretary Kissinger: But, first of all, that’s impossible for the French.

Mr. Enders: Well, it’s impossible for the French under the Pompidou Government. Would it be necessarily under a future French Government? We should test that.

Secretary Kissinger: If they have gold to settle current accounts, we’ll be faced, sooner or later, with the same proposition again. Then others will be asked to join this settlement thing.

Isn’t this what they’re doing?

Mr. Enders: It seems to me, Mr. Secretary, that we should try—not rule out, a priori, a demonetizing scenario, because we can both gain by this. That liberates gold at a higher price. We have gold, and some of the Europeans have gold. Our interests join theirs. This would be helpful; and it would also, on the other hand, gradually remove this dominant position that the Europeans have had in economic terms.

Secretary Kissinger: Who’s with us on demonetizing gold?

Mr. Enders: I think we could get the Germans with us on demonetizing gold, the Dutch and the British, over a very long period of time.

Secretary Kissinger: How about the Japs?

Mr. Enders: Yes. The Arabs have shown no great interest in gold.

Secretary Kissinger: We could stick them with a lot of gold.

Mr. Sisco: Yes. (Laughter.)

Mr. Sonnenfeldt: At those high-dollar prices. I don’t know why they’d want to take it.

Secretary Kissinger: For the bathroom fixtures in the Guest House in Rio. (Laughter.)

Mr. McCloskey: That’d never work.

Secretary Kissinger: That’d never work. Why it could never get the bathtub filled—it probably takes two weeks to fill it.

Mr. Sisco: Three years ago, when Jean 3 was in one of those large bathtubs, two of those guys with speakers at that time walked right on through. She wasn’t quite used to it. (Laughter.)

Secretary Kissinger: They don’t have guards with speakers in that house.

Mr. Sisco: Well, they did in ’71.

Mr. Brown: Usually they’ve been fixed in other directions.

Mr. Sisco: Sure. (Laughter.)

Secretary Kissinger: O.K. My instinct is to oppose it. What’s your view, Art?

Mr. Hartman: Yes. I think for the present time, in terms of the kind of system that we’re going for, it would be very hard to defend in terms of how.

Secretary Kissinger: Ken?

Mr. Rush: Well, I think probably I do. The question is: Suppose they go ahead on their own anyway. What then?

Secretary Kissinger: We’ll bust them.

Mr. Enders: I think we should look very hard then, Ken, at very substantial sales of gold—U.S. gold on the market—to raid the gold market once and for all.

Mr. Rush: I’m not sure we could do it.

Secretary Kissinger: If they go ahead on their own against our position on something that we consider central to our interests, we’ve got to show them that that they can’t get away with it. Hopefully, we should have the right position. But we just cannot let them get away with these unilateral steps all the time.

Mr. Lord: Does the Treasury agree with us on this? I mean, if this guy comes when the Secretary is out of the country—

Secretary Kissinger: Who’s coming?

Mr. Enders: The Dutch Finance Minister—Duisenberg—and Zijlstra. I think it will take about two weeks to work through a hard position on this. The Treasury will want our leadership on the hardness of it. They will accept our leadership on this. It will take, I would think, some time to talk it through or talk it around Arthur Burns, and we’ll have to see what his reaction is.

Mr. Rush: We have about 45 billion dollars at the present value—

Mr. Enders: That’s correct.

Mr. Rush: And there’s about 100 billion dollars of gold.

Mr. Enders: That’s correct. And the annual turnover in the gold market is about 120 billion.

Secretary Kissinger: The gold market is generally in cahoots with Arthur Burns.

Mr. Enders: Yes. That’s been my experience. So I think we’ve got to bring Arthur around.

Secretary Kissinger: Arthur is a reasonable man. Let me talk to him. It takes him a maddening long time to make a point, but he’s a reasonable man.

Mr. Enders: He hasn’t had a chance to look at the proposal yet.

Secretary Kissinger: I’ll talk to him before I leave. 4

Mr. Enders: Good.

Mr. Boeker: It seems to me that gold sales is perhaps Stage 2 in a strategy that might break up the European move—that Stage 1 should be formulating a counterproposal U.S. design to isolate those who are opposing it the hardest—the French and the Italians. That would attract considerable support. It would appeal to the Japanese and others. I think this could fairly easily be done. And that, in itself, should put considerable pressure on the EEC for a tentative consensus.

Mr. Hartman: It isn’t a confrontation. That is, it seems to me we can discuss the various aspects of this thing.

Secretary Kissinger: Oh, no. We should discuss it—obviously. But I don’t like the proposition of their doing something and then inviting other countries to join them.

Mr. Hartman: I agree. That’s not what they’ve done.

Mr. Sonnenfeldt: Can we get them to come after the French election 5 so we don’t get kicked in the head?

Mr. Rush: I would think so.

Secretary Kissinger: I would think it would be a lot better to discuss it after the French election. Also, it would give us a better chance. Why don’t you tell Simonthis?

Mr. Enders: Good.

Secretary Kissinger: Let them come after the French election.

Mr. Enders: Good. I will be back—I can talk to Simon. I guess Shultz will be out then. 6

Mr. Sonnenfeldt: He’ll be out the 4th of May.

Mr. Enders: Yes. Meanwhile, we’ll go ahead and develop a position on the basis of this discussion.

Secretary Kissinger: Yes.

Mr. Enders: Good.

Secretary Kissinger: I agree we shouldn’t get a consultation—as long as we’re talking Treasury, I keep getting pressed for Treasury chair-manship of a policy committee. You’re opposed to that? 7

[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to international monetary policy.]

1 Source: National Archives, RG 59, Transcripts of Secretary of State Kissinger’s Staff Meetings, 1973–1977, Entry 5177, Box 3, Secretary’s Staff Meeting, April 25, 1974. Secret. According to an attached list, the following people attended the meeting: Kissinger, Rush, Sisco, Ingersoll,Hartman, Maw, Ambassador at Large Robert Mc-Closkey, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Easum, Hyland, Atherton, Lord, Policy Planning Staff member Paul Boeker,Eagleburger, Springsteen, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Press Relations Robert Anderson, Enders, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Jack Kubisch, andSonnenfeldt.

2 Meeting in Zeist, the Netherlands, on April 22 and 23, EC Finance Ministers and central bankers agreed on a common position on gold, which they authorized the Dutch Minister of Finance, Willem Frederik Duisenberg, and the President of the Dutch central bank, Jelle Zijlstra, to discuss with Treasury and Federal Reserve Board officials in Washington. (Telegram 2042 from The Hague, April 24, and telegram 2457 from USEC Brussels, April 25; ibid., Central Foreign Policy Files)

3 Jean Sisco was Joseph Sisco’s wife.

4 From April 28 to 29, Kissinger was in Geneva for talks with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.

5 France held a Presidential election on May 19.

6 George Shultz’s tenure as Secretary of the Treasury ended on May 8, when he was replaced byWilliam Simon.

7 The summary attached to the front page of the minutes notes that “The Secretary is inclined to oppose the proposal on grounds of non consultation by the Europeans as well as on the proposal’s merits. The Secretary agreed to talk to Arthur Burns in this sense.”

London knocks off New York City as top spot for foreign investors

A combination of factors, such as the financial crisis, a false recovery, new government regulations, and a general mistrust from investors, has dented Wall Street.  This is now showing up based on the recent survey conducted by the Wisconsin School of Business.  London now is the #1 destination for foreign investors:

London is the top choice for foreign investors, beating New York City, which finished second in a poll released today.
San Francisco ranked third, followed by Houston and Los Angeles. Washington, D.C., fell out of favor as a destination for foreign money, dropping to ninth, after Tokyo, Madrid and Munich. New York ranked first in the previous three years.
The survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of last year by the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate, Wisconsin School of Business. Respondents were members of the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE.)

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/06/213625/london-knocks-off-new-york-as.html#storylink=cpy

The Dubai Bubble - Hot money in frontier and emerging markets

For more info on Forex Robots, see OneStepRemoved.com

Keiser Report: NSA manipulates bank accounts?

Indian tribe to create their own cryptocurrency Maza Coin

An American Indian tribe in South Dakota is experimenting with the use of their own BitCoin alternative, MazaCoin.  They believe it will help the economic situation of their tribe, and also be a boost for the local community where they live.  Indian Reservations have a semi-sovereign status, so if this MazaCoin does take off, it will be interesting to see how any disputes will be resolved, if any.

Will Bitcoin become the new virtual gold for the Oglala Lakota Nation? The impoverished tribe's reservation is based in rural Rapid City, South Dakota. Payu Harris, the tribal council representative, thinks the Bitcoin (BTC) can empower his people.
Harris is spearheading theBTC Oyate Initiative Project, an "exciting chance for Bitcoin to prove its market viability as a means of trade, identify potential pitfalls and security challenges, and showcase its availability as a merchant-payment solution for small business and entrepreneurs," states the website.
The tribe's currency, the MazaCoin "will be as simple & easy to use as BitCoin of which it is a fork custom designed for the socio-economic needs of the Oglala Lakota," statesMazaCoin on Twiiter.
"We're estimating the initial price on the going market of copy.25, which gives us a $2 billion market capitalization," Harris toldKOTARadio.com.

The Oyate Project will assemble a small-scale "mining cluster" to generate bitcoins while providing the public a hands-on chance to learn about mining and how bitcoins are generated, explains the project's website. "The btc generated will be forwarded to the second aspect of the project which is Crypto Currency Exchanges and trading and will be used to help train beginning Native American traders on the basics of cryptocurrency trading, futures contracts, market strategy, CC pairs, and more," states the Oyate Project description. "Also lastly the project aims to produce a massive promotional campaign aimed at small business owners to help facilitate their acceptance of bitcoin as a viable means of payment for goods and services."

Read more athttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/01/03/can-bitcoin-alleviate-poverty-pine-ridge-reservation-tribe-pursues-its-own-cryptocurrency

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Cap Ex nabbed by NFA for overcharging for 'software fees'

In an amazing case of lies and overcharging on fees, a CTA charged a customer so many fees that they would have needed to make 12% a month just to break even!  This complaint is a must read.

From the NFA:

For Immediate Release
December 31, 2013

For more information contact:
Larry Dyekman (312) 781-1372, ldyekman@nfa.futures.org
Karen Wuertz (312) 781-1335, kwuertz@nfa.futures.org

NFA orders Westminster, California commodity trading advisor Cap Ex Partners LLC to permanently withdraw from NFA membership and sanctions its principals, Keith R. Bramlett and Ralph H. Johnson

December 31, Chicago - National Futures Association (NFA) has ordered Cap Ex Partners LLC (Cap Ex), a commodity trading advisor Member of NFA located in Westminster, California, to permanently withdraw from NFA membership. NFA has also orderedKeith R. Bramlett (Bramlett) and Ralph H. Johnson (Johnson), associated persons and listed principals of Cap Ex, to withdraw from NFA membership. Bramlett and Johnson are prohibited from applying for NFA membership or associate membership for a period of two years from the date of their withdrawals. In addition, Bramlett and Johnson are prohibited from acting as a principal of any NFA Member for a period of three years from the date of their withdrawals. The Decision, issued by a designated panel (Panel) of NFA's Hearing Committee, is based on a Complaint filed against Cap Ex, Bramlett and Johnson on August 29, 2013, and a settlement offer submitted by Cap Ex, Bramlett and Johnson.

The Panel found that Cap Ex, Bramlett and Johnson charged their customers excessive fees and failed to provide customers with a break-even analysis as required by NFA rules. In addition, Cap Ex and Bramlett willfully submitted false information to NFA. Further, Cap Ex used a misleading disclosure document, did business with an entity that was required to be registered as a commodity pool operator but was not registered in such capacity and failed to list an entity as a principal of the firm.

The complete text of the Complaint and Decision can be viewed on NFA's website (www.nfa.futures.org).

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