"Boston firm ordered to pay $2.9M fine in commodity pool fraud case
A federal judge ordered a Boston man and his company, JBW Capital, to pay a civil penalty of nearly $2.9 million for commodity pool fraud, financial regulators said Wednesday.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the judgment against JBW and its owner, John B. Wilson. The action by US District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston stems from a CFTC complaint filed in 2012, charging the company and its principal with overstating the value of a commodity pool to investors on multiple occasions.
A commodity pool solicits funds from investors and combines them for use in trading futures, options, swaps, and other complex investments.
In September 2008, as global markets were crashing, JBW told investors the pool was worth nearly $2.5 million, when the securities it held were actually worth only $1.2 million, the CFTC said. The court also found that JBW had illegally acted as an unregistered commodity pool operator.
The regulator said the Massachusetts Securities Division assisted with the case.
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