On March 21, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) charged The Trade Tech Institute, Inc., Technology Trading International, Inc., Robert Sorchini and Richard Carter with fraudulently soliciting more than 600 managed commodity trading accounts.
A federal court in Los Angeles entered a restraining order against defendants Trade Tech, freezing defendants’ assets, prohibiting the destruction or alteration of their books and records and requiring defendants to provide an accounting of all funds and assets under their control.
The order stems from a joint action filed by the CFTC and the Commissioner of Corporations of the State of California (State) under seal on March 15, 2011, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, charging the defendants with fraudulently promoting and selling to the public several commodity trading systems pursuant to which customer managed accounts would be traded, in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act and California law.
The complaint specifically alleges that, since at least 2007 and continuing through the present, Trade Tech, by and through Carter, Sorchini and others, actively promoted and marketed a variety of systems to the public to be used for trading futures contracts and options on futures contracts in managed accounts. Trade Tech’s systems include Trade Tech Analytics, Paradigm, Optimum, Expeditor, MAC, Hybrid, Daytona and Pioneer.
The CFTC complaint further alleges that beginning in April 2010, Sorchini, Carter and others formed Tech Trading to continue their fraudulent promotion and selling of systems.