Obama's Fraud Squad Targets Record Oil Price Plunge
Zach Carter
HuffPost
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a memo to the federal agencies involved in the president's new Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group on Friday, urging them to take close look at the recent plunge in oil prices. The crude oil market fell 10 percent Thursday in a record sell-off.
The sharp drop came amid concerns from several experts that excessive speculation in commodities markets was driving up gas prices for consumers. As Bart Chilton, a top regulator at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), has repeatedly noted, the number of speculative bets on oil and food are at record levels.
The CFTC and Justice Department have had authority to monitor fraud and manipulation in the oil markets for decades. But President Barack Obama created the new oil market fraud squad in April to provide enhanced regulatory scrutiny of potential fraud and manipulation in the oil futures and derivatives markets.
Holder's Friday memo was not concerned with the causes for the oil market decline, only that no illegal activity prevents resulting lower prices being passed onto consumers.
(More here.)
HuffPost
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a memo to the federal agencies involved in the president's new Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group on Friday, urging them to take close look at the recent plunge in oil prices. The crude oil market fell 10 percent Thursday in a record sell-off.
The sharp drop came amid concerns from several experts that excessive speculation in commodities markets was driving up gas prices for consumers. As Bart Chilton, a top regulator at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), has repeatedly noted, the number of speculative bets on oil and food are at record levels.
The CFTC and Justice Department have had authority to monitor fraud and manipulation in the oil markets for decades. But President Barack Obama created the new oil market fraud squad in April to provide enhanced regulatory scrutiny of potential fraud and manipulation in the oil futures and derivatives markets.
Holder's Friday memo was not concerned with the causes for the oil market decline, only that no illegal activity prevents resulting lower prices being passed onto consumers.
(More here.)
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