U.S. prosecutors charged five former natural gas traders for allegedly supplying fake trade data to publishers that produce indexes used to value natural gas contracts. This post and this post refer to earlier indictments of the same nature against other El Paso Corp. traders.
Prosecutors alleged that two of the traders – Donald E. Burwell and James P. Phillips – operated as part of a conspiracy at El Paso Merchant Energy run that the government alleges was run by the head of gas trading. The executive who allegedly ran the conspiracy was not identified in the indictments.
Messrs. Burwell and Phillips, along with former El Paso trader Greg Singleton and former Dynegy Inc trader Michelle Marie Valencia were all charged with conspiracy, wire fraud and false reporting. A fifth trader — Jerry A. Futch Jr. — formerly of Reliant Energy Corp, was charged with four counts of reporting false transaction data. All five defendants pleaded innocent at an arraignment Monday and were released on $50,000 bond.
In an interesting twist, all the defendants except Mr. Futch were allowed to turn themselves in to the U.S. Marshal’s Office Monday morning, as is typical in white collar criminal cases. However, for some reason, Mr. Futch was not allowed to do so and was arrested at his home as he was getting ready to take his two children to school. No word yet on the reason for the government’s heavy handed handling of Mr. Futch.
The indictments follow a lengthy investigation into alleged efforts to manipulate the trading indexes, which are used to value billions of dollars in gas contracts and derivatives. Industry publications, such as the Inside FERC Gas Market Report, use data from traders to calculate the index price of natural gas. Accordingly, movement in index prices often affects the level of profits traders can generate. In these particular trader cases, it remains unclear whether the publication actually used the false information provided, but the government needs only to prove that fake trades were reported and not not that they were actually published or affected the markets.
Moreover, in an earlier case involving Ms. Valencia in which she was charged with false reporting, a federal district judge threw out the charges after ruling that the part of the Commodity Exchange Act that deals with reporting of false and misleading information on on commodity trades is unconstitutionally broad and vague. That ruling is currently on appeal at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which has already conducted oral argument in the case and is currently preparing its decision.