A trading unit of French oil major TotalEnergies (LON:TTE) has been fined $48 million by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission over allegations that the firm attempted to manipulate gasoline markets.
The decision is based on claims that TotalEnergies Trading SA (TOTSA) attempted to manipulate futures contracts linked to a fuel used primarily in Europe, known as EBOB, the CFTC said.
Bloomberg said that Total didn’t immediately respond to request for comment made outside of the company’s normal business hours.
The case is the latest in fines being slapped against energy and commodity traders.
In June, Trafigura Group agreed to pay $55m to settle allegations from the CFTC that it manipulated a fuel oil benchmark and blocked employees from cooperating with regulators.
And earlier this month, years of legal probes against Glencore Plc wrapped up with the company ordered to pay $152m.
The TotalEnergies case involves the unit’s alleged efforts in 2018 to benefit from a short position in EBOB-linked futures by selling large quantities of the physical EBOB fuel at lower prices than buyers indicated they would pay.
“Essentially, TOTSA’s traders were willing to accept less revenue from the company’s sales of physical EBOB, in an attempt to depress the reported price of EBOB, and increase TOTSA’s overall trading profits (by boosting the value of the company’s EBOB-linked short position),” the CFTC statement said.
While TOTSA provided some cooperation during the probe, the firm didn’t timely produce certain WhatsApp communications that were requested or adequately preserve these communications following the request, “with the result that potentially relevant evidence was unavailable,” the CFTC said.
The CFTC received assistance from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) in its investigation.
This year has also seen TotalEnergies bosses, including CEO Patrick Pouyanne hit by a criminal complaint from climate change activists over their alleged role in disasters sparked by global warming.
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