Spoofing, as we have established, is awfully hard to prove in a court of law. Far, far better to come to a more or less amicable arrangement that makes clear that spoofing is very much not OK, but without the hassle of building a case or making an argument or potentially losing and having spoofing become de facto, if not de jure, OK, while also setting a very expensive precedent for those whose spoofing efforts far exceed those of Jamie Dimon’s people, however creative they’ve been.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is poised to pay close to $1 billion to resolve market manipulation investigations by U.S. authorities into its trading of metals futures and Treasury securities…. A penalty approaching $1 billion would far exceed previous spoofing-related fines. It would also be on par with sanctions in many prior manipulation cases, including some brought several years ago against banks for allegedly rigging benchmark interest rates and foreign exchange markets.