A U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois declared a mistrial after
jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict concerning an
alleged commodities spoofing scheme related to the 2010 Dow Jones
"Flash Crash."
According to the Complaint, Jitesh Thakkar,
the founder and principal of Edge Financial Technologies, Inc.,
allegedly (i) created an automated program to reduce the risk that
an order intended to spoof other traders would be executed, and
(ii) gave the automated program to another trader who used it to
place spoof orders.
The trader who used the automated program in sending spoofing
orders had previously pled guilty to wire fraud and spoofing on the
Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Mr. Thakkar claimed that he did not
know what the trader intended to do with the software.