Move Over FX And Libor, As Manipulation And "Banging The Close" Comes To Commodities And Interest Rate Swaps

"While the public's attention has been focused recently on revelations involving currency manipulation by all the same banks best known until recently for dispensing Bollinger when they got a Libor end of day print from their criminal cartel precisely where they wanted it (for an amusing take, read Matt Taibbi's latest), the truth is that manipulation of FX and Libor is old news. Time to move on to bigger and better markets, such as physical commodities, in this case crude, as well as Interest Rate swaps. And, best of all, the us of our favorite manipulation term of all: "banging the close."

The story of crude oil manipulation, primarily involving Platts as a pricing intermediary, has appeared on these pages in the past as far back as a year ago, and usually resulted in either participant companies, regulators or entire nation states doing their best to brush it under the rug. However, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to do so as the following Bloomberg story demonstrates.

Four longtime traders in the global oil market claim in a lawsuit that the prices for buying and selling crude are fixed -- and that they can prove it. Some of the world’s biggest oil companies including BP Plc (BP/), Statoil ASA (STL), and Royal Dutch Shell Plc conspired with Morgan Stanley and energy traders including Vitol Group to manipulate the closely watched spot prices for Brent crude oil for more than a decade, they allege. The North Sea benchmark is used to price more than half the world’s crude and helps determine where costs are headed for fuels including gasoline and heating oil.

The case, which follows at least six other U.S. lawsuits alleging price-fixing in the Brent market,provides what appears to be the most detailed description yet of the alleged manipulations and lays out a possible road map for regulators investigating the matter.

The traders who brought it -- who include a former director of the New York Mercantile Exchange, or Nymex, one of the markets where contracts for future Brent deliveries are traded - - allege they paid “artificial and anticompetitive prices” for Brent futures. They also outline attempts to manipulate prices for Russian Urals crude and cite instances when the spread between Brent and Dubai grades of crude may have been rigged.

The oil companies and energy-trading houses, which include Trafigura Beheer BV and Phibro Trading LLC, submitted false and misleading information to Platts, an energy news and price publisher whose quotes are used by traders worldwide, according to the proposed class action filed Oct. 4 in Manhattan federal court.

The method of manipulation is a well-known one to regular readers: spoofing.

Over 85 pages, the plaintiffs describe how the market allegedly showed that the Dated Brent spot price was artificially driven up or down by the defendants, depending on what would profit them most in swap, futures or spot markets. They allege the defendants used methods including “spoofing” - - placing orders that move markets with the intention of canceling them later. Platts’ methodology “can be easily gamed by market participants that make false, inaccurate or misleading trades,” the plaintiff traders alleged. BFOE refers to the four oil grades -- Brent, Forties, Oseberg and Ekofisk -- that collectively make up the Dated Brent benchmark.

Ironically, spoofing is one of the primary mechanisms by which the HFT cabal has also benefitted, and been able to, levitate the market to ever record-er highs on ever lower volume. That, and Bernanke of course..."

at http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-06/move-over-fx-and-libor-wholesale-market-manipulation-and-banging-close-comes-crude-a