NOTICE OF DISCIPLINARY ACTION

MEMBER:

ING CAPITAL MARKETS LLC

COMEX RULE VIOLATION:

RULE 432. GENERAL OFFENSES (in part)

It shall be an offense:

L.2. to fail to fully answer all questions or produce all books and records at such hearing or in connection with any investigation, or to make false statements.

RULE 534. WASH TRADES PROHIBITED

No person shall place or accept buy and sell orders in the same product and expiration month, and, for a put or call option, the same strike price, where the person knows or reasonably should know that the purpose of the orders is to avoid taking a bona fide market position exposed to market risk (transactions commonly known or referred to as wash sales). Buy and sell orders for different accounts with common beneficial ownership that are entered with the intent to negate market risk or price competition shall also be deemed to violate the prohibition on wash trades. Additionally, no person shall knowingly execute or accommodate the execution of such orders by direct or indirect means.

FINDINGS:

Pursuant to an offer of settlement presented at a hearing on June 25, 2020, in which ING Capital Markets, LLC ( “ING”) neither admitted nor denied the rule violations upon which the penalty is based, a Panel of the COMEX Business Conduct Committee (the “Panel”) found that on November 21, 2018, traders for ING and an ING affiliate placed opposing orders in the COMEX December 2018 Gold Trading At Settlement (“DEC18 Gold TAS”) futures market for accounts with common beneficial ownership, resulting in those orders trading opposite one another. The Panel also found that, based on market conditions and knowledge of each other’s trading strategies, the traders knew or should have known that their TAS orders were likely to match with each other.

Further, the Panel found that, during the course of Market Regulation’s investigation into the above-referenced trading activity, ING failed to adequately respond to Market Regulation’s inquiries. Specifically, in response to Market Regulation’s request for all communications relevant to the trading activity described above, ING tasked one of the traders involved in that trading activity with gathering responsive communications. The trader provided an incomplete version of a relevant Bloomberg chat, and ING in turn produced this incomplete chat to Market Regulation. However, ING subsequently provided the full chat to Market Regulation.

The Panel found that as a result, ING violated Rules 534 and 432.L.2.

PENALTY:

In accordance with the settlement offer, the Panel ordered ING to pay a fine to the Exchange in the amount of $50,000.