Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) charges of attempted gas market manipulation against two former CMS Field Services Inc. employees have been settled by consent orders issued in U.S. District Court in Tulsa.

The order relating to Jeffrey A. Bradley of Bixby, OK, was entered on May 25, the CFTC said Tuesday. It requires him to pay a $100,000 civil penalty and permanently prohibits him from applying for registration with the CFTC or engaging in any activity requiring registration or acting as a principal of any registered entity or person.

The order relating to Robert L. Martin of Tulsa was entered on June 25 and requires him to pay a $25,000 civil penalty. He is under the same prohibitions as Bradley but only for a period of three years.

The two were charged with reporting or causing the reporting of false natural gas trade information to compilers of natural gas daily and monthly price indexes in an attempt to manipulate gas prices. The consent orders arise from a CFTC lawsuit filed on Feb. 1, 2005 (see Daily GPI, Feb. 2, 2005).

The CFTC alleged that between January 2001 and October 2002 Bradley submitted false trading information to Platts Inside FERC Gas Market Report, Platts Gas Daily and other natural gas price index compilers in an effort to manipulate the price of natural gas in interstate commerce. With respect to Martin, the complaint alleged that on one occasion in July 2002, he and Bradley coordinated to provide false information to a gas index compiler concerning one particular pipeline, also in an attempt to manipulate gas prices.

In another false price data reporting case, former Dynegy Inc. trader Michelle Valencia and former El Paso Merchant Energy trader Greg Singleton, both of whom were found guilty last year of wire fraud in U.S. District Court in Houston (see Daily GPI, Dec. 20, 2006; Aug. 7, 2006), are scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 21.

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