Court sides with DOJ regarding victim-witnesses in JPMorgan spoofing case
The Illinois Northern District Court has sided with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a dispute over identification of victim-witnesses in a lawsuit accusing former JPMorgan traders of spoofing.
This case targets Gregg Smith, Michael Nowak, Jeffrey Ruffo, and Christopher Jordan. Back in 2019, the DOJ launched criminal proceedings against the former JPMorgan precious metals futures traders. The indictment alleges that the defendants engaged in widespread spoofing, market manipulation and fraud while working at JPMorgan through the placement of orders they intended to cancel before execution in an effort to create liquidity and drive prices toward orders they wanted to execute on the opposite side of the market.
As FX News Group has reported, the former traders and the DOJ have clashed over the identification of victim-witnesses. Whereas the defendants pushed for a tight deadline – February 28, 2021, the Justice Department sought the deadline to be June 18, 2021.
Earlier this week, the Court sided with the DOJ on the matter. On January 28, 2021, the Honorable Edmond E. Chang determined that the government will have to identify trial victim-witnesses by June 18, 2021. This is four months in advance of the trial and sufficient time for the defense to prepare for trial and to litigate subpoena-related disputes, the Judge said. “There is no sound reason to think that the volume or nature of those disputes will require more time or otherwise impede trial preparation”, the Honorable Edmond E. Chang explained.
The former JPMorgan traders are highly unlikely to be pleased with this ruling. The defense insists it cannot wait until June 18, four months prior to trial, to begin the process of seeking information from the alleged victim-witnesses. The defense argues that effective trial preparation is time consuming, particularly where the gathering of evidence may itself require litigation.
Contrary to the government’s contention, while such litigation may be resolved in the four months between mid-June and mid-October, that schedule does not ensure that the defendants will have sufficient opportunity to process, analyze, and meaningfully use the data thereby obtained, the defense concludes.