SEC $15 Million Market Manipulation Award Against Trader Upheld

A stock trader owes the SEC more than $15 million in disgorgement and a civil penalty for a form of market manipulation that uses multiple brokerage accounts to move prices, the Second Circuit affirmed Monday.

The lower court was within its discretion in accepting the Securities and Exchange Commission’s $5.20 million calculation of former broker James O’Brien’s net profits rather than using a “mystifying” method he offered, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said in an unsigned, unpublished opinion. Judge Denise L. Cote of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York also acted ...