$500 Million Oil Profit by U.K. Firm Draws Senator’s Scrutiny

Brown presses CFTC to look into possible market manipulation
Request follows Bloomberg News report on Vega trading profits

Senator Sherrod Brown
Photographer: Melissa Lyttle/Bloomberg

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By Benjamin Bain, Liam Vaughan, and Kit Chellel

August 6, 2020 at 8:31 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

A key Senate Democrat is urging U.S. regulators to conduct a thorough analysis of whether oil markets are susceptible to manipulation following a Bloomberg News report that documented how a small London firm made as much as $500 million when the price of crude went negative in April.

Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the Banking Committee’s top Democrat, said Vega Capital London Ltd.’s trading profits indicate that “additional regulatory safeguards” are needed, according to a letter he sent Thursday to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He also questioned comments CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert has made about what happened on April 20, when the price of oil hit -$37 a barrel.