Aaristo Commodities and Futures DMCC of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, paid a $100,000 civil penalty for engaging in illegal trading in the U.S. natural gas, oil, copper and gold markets, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said Wednesday.

The consent order, entered by Judge Richard J. Holwell of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, imposes a permanent injunction against Aaristo and finds the company liable for violating federal laws banning wash sales, accommodation trades and fictitious sales, and engaging in improper noncompetitive commodity futures transactions, the agency said.

The order stems from a CFTC complaint filed in April 2007 charging Aaristo, along with two other companies and two individuals, all of Dubai, with the illegal trading of futures contracts offered by the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) on the Globex electronic trading platform on several days in March and April 2007. Aaristo and the other defendants were charged with passing hundreds of thousands of dollars among their futures trading accounts through these illegal commodity futures transactions.

Specifically, the order finds that on at least six trading days in March and April of last year, Aaristo engaged in a series of futures transactions in which it traded illiquid, distant contracts opposite others at off-the-market prices. The effect of this trading was no net change in open positions of Aaristo but a resulting profit to Aaristo and a loss to the counterparties, according to the CFTC.

The CFTC said it received assistance from Nymex, the Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority and MF Global Inc. in its investigation.

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