The U.S. "flash crash" market-manipulation case against Navinder Singh Sarao will depend on showing the lone trader's intent to manipulate prices when he made his trades at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, according to a lawyer who has defended individuals in spoofing and insider trading cases. Sarao is accused of earning up to $40 million in profits by manipulating the prices of the E-mini S&P 500 near-month futures contract at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for over five years. He was arrested in London last week and said he will fight extradition to the United States. Sarao maintains that he has been made a convenient scapegoat for systemic problems related to the proliferation of algorithmic and low-latency trading. In one 12-day period, Sarao allegedly manipulated the price of the e-mini by using "spoofing" algorithms to cancel hundreds of thousands of trading orders, according to documents filed by the the Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Emmanuel Olaoye, Compliance Complete