• Alleged Market Manipulation in Energy Markets

    Analysis Group has extensive experience in the analysis of alleged market manipulation spanning a wide variety of securities and commodities markets. Our commodities market experience includes manipulation claims involving many types of energy commodities, such as electricity, natural gas, propane, and other liquid fuels.

    This work includes enforcement actions brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Department of Justice, as well as subsequent litigation stemming from these allegations. Alleged conduct we have evaluated includes spoofing, index manipulation, corners and squeezes, collusion, misreporting, and market power issues.

    In these matters, we rely on both internal experts and academic affiliates. We bring to bear extensive knowledge of, and experience with, the rules and operational procedures of commodities exchanges and organized markets. We also are deeply familiar with order and trade data from these exchanges, as well as with internal accounting books held by trading entities. We routinely apply this knowledge to inform economic analysis of alleged manipulative schemes and statistical analysis to assess whether actual trading is consistent alleged conduct, whether conduct created an artificial price, and whether alleged schemes are profitable.

    While our work on these matters is often confidential, examples include: