Ex-Deutsche Bank Trader Pleads Not Guilty to Spoofing

(Bloomberg) -- A former trader at Deutsche Bank AG, one of eight people charged with deceptive trading practices earlier this year, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in federal court in Chicago.

Cedric Chanu, 40, a French citizen charged with conspiracy and wire fraud, was accused of manipulating precious metal futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange between 2009 and 2011 by spoofing the markets. Spoofing is an illegal trading practice in which fraudulent orders to buy and sell contracts are communicated to other traders to misrepresent supply and demand.

Chanu is seeking to be released on bond to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where he currently works at a trading company, his lawyer said. He wants to secure his release with his parents’ home in France. U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Mason, who was leaning toward finding a way to allow Chanu to return to Dubai but needed to review the French laws on securing the property, said he would decide the terms of release Wednesday.

The U.S. Justice Department charged Chanu and seven other traders in January with manipulating the markets on the CME, the Chicago Board of Trade and the Commodity Exchange Inc. Also in January, Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings Plc and UBS Group AG settled civil claims of manipulating markets for $50 million.

To contact the reporter on this story: Janan Hanna in Chicago at jhanna31@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Wollman at ewollman@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg

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