Via Zerohedge:
Yesterday’s announcement by CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton that he was fully aware of fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control silver prices may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back on precious metal manipulation. Today, Brian Beatty and Peter Laskaris (Southern District Court of New York, cases 10-08146, and 10-01857) sued the two firms at the very top of the precious metal manipulation pyramid: JPMorgan and HSBC. The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, alleges that “between in or about March 2008 and continuing through the present, Defendants have combined, conspired and agreed to restrain trade in, fix, and manipulate prices of silver futures and options contracts traded in this District on the COMEX division of the NYMEX. Defendants thereby have violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C ¶1. Also during the Class Period, individual Defendants have intentionally acted to manipulate prices of COMEX silver futures and options contracts. Such conduct violates Section 9(a) of the Commodity Exchange Act, 7 U.S.C. ¶13b.” And so, the tidal wave of lawsuits by all those who may have ever lost money trading precious metals against JPM et al begins.
The lawsuit alleges that the means by which JPM and HSBC manipulated the market is as follows:
- Defendants have effected their foregoing restraint of trade and manipulation through diverse means. These means themselves include lawful and unlawful acts.
- Defendants have held large positions in silver futures and silver options.
- Defendant have held a concentrated and substantial amount of the open interest in silver futures contracts
- Defendants have made large trades at key times.
- Defendants or others have made large “spoof” orders which appeared on the trading screens; “spoofing” is the submission of a large order which is not executed but influences prices and is then withdrawn before it reasonably can be executed.
- Defendants have communicated with and/or signalled one another their trades
Continue To Zerohedge article to see actual lawsuit filing.
This may be the first of such lawsuits but don’t expect this to be the last. Â Across the USA, bigger and badder law firms are preparing their own lawsuits.
Further, don’t expect this to end with silver. Â GATA, Sinclair, Sprott, Ron Paul et al will be vindicated in their assertions that gold too has been manipulated down for years.
Regards,
George