NOTICE OF DISCIPLINARY ACTION

NON-MEMBER:

Yaqiang Yang

CBOT RULE VIOLATIONS: 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 trades or 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 in which Yaqiang Yang neither admitted nor denied the rule violations or factual findings upon which the penalty is based, on May 17, 2022, a Panel of the Chicago Board of Trade (“CBOT”) Business Conduct Committee (“Panel”) found that on April 15, 2020, and December 1, 2020, Yang, an employee of a large state-owned import and export enterprise through its wholly-owned subsidiary in Singapore, entered opposing buy and sell orders in the MAY20-JUL20 Soybean futures spread and the JAN21-MAR21Soybean futures spread for a single account with the same beneficial owner after receiving order instructions from two different departments within the enterprise. In these instances, each of the departments separately provided order instructions directly to the employee. The orders traded against each other in part, and Yang knew or reasonably should have known that the entry of the orders would result in wash trades. The purpose of these transactions was to roll each of the department’s previously established positions into the next expiration.

The Panel concluded that Yang thereby violated CBOT Rule 534.

PENALTY:

In accordance with the settlement offer, the Panel ordered Yang to pay a fine in the amount of $10,000 and suspended Yang from access to any trading floor owned or controlled by CME Group and from direct and indirect access to any designated contract market, derivatives clearing organization or swap execution facility owned or controlled by CME Group for five-business days, beginning on the effective date below, and continuing through and including May 25, 2022.