Spoofing Mistrial Shows the Limit of Dodd-Frank on Fake Trade Orders
- Thakkar was first non-trader charged with crime under new law
- Defendant developed the software used by a convicted spoofer
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A decade after the U.S. government outlawed bogus trading orders known as spoofing, prosecutors are finding there are limits to how aggressively they can crack down on some forms of market manipulation.
The case of Jitesh Thakkar, the first non-trader charged under anti-spoofing laws, ended this week in a mistrial. Jurors in Chicago were split over whether he broke the law by developing software that someone else used for fake market orders, even after hearing detailed testimony from his client, convicted Flash Crash trader Navinder Singh Sarao.