Spotlight On Spoofing: Looking Back At 2015 And Forward To 2016

In 2014, regulators signaled that they would focus their efforts on investigating and prosecuting individuals engaged in spoofing. True to their word, 2015 saw the nation's first criminal conviction of a trader for spoofing in the U.S., as well as an increase in civil enforcement actions against traders who allegedly engaged in spoofing. Securities and futures exchanges also ramped up their efforts to detect, deter, and punish spoofing. The expectation is that regulators and self-regulatory organizations will continue to actively monitor the markets using increasingly sophisticated technology to detect spoofing. This is likely to lead to an increase in the number of enforcement actions and prosecutions for spoofing in 2016.