SEC Wins Jury Trial in Layering, Manipulative Trading Case

Today, jurors in New York federal court returned a verdict in the Securities and Exchange Commission's favor against a trading firm headquartered in Kiev, Ukraine, and two individuals for their roles in an unlawful trading scheme that generated more than $25 million in illicit profit. The SEC's evidence at trial showed that Nathan Fayyer and Sergey Pustelnik used their trading firm, Avalon FA Ltd., to illegally profit from two manipulative trading schemes. First, the defendants engaged in a layering scheme, a trading practice which involved placing and canceling orders to trick others into buying or selling stocks at artificial prices. Second, they engaged in cross-market manipulation, which involved buying or selling stocks to artificially impact options prices.