• CFTC announced charges against United States Commodity Funds LLC for failing to fully disclose information relating to trading limitations to commodity pool participants.
• SEC settled a parallel action on US Commodity Funds, and US Oil Fund.
• US Commodity Funds, USO agreed to pay $2.5mn in penalties to settle parallel cases.

Allegations

• In 2020, US Commodity Funds failed to fully disclose to commodity pool participants that US Oil Fund, LP (USO) imposed position limits on one of its commodity pools.
• Failure to disclose material information to participants resulted in fraud on participants.
• Respondent violated CEA Section 4o(a)(B) and Regulation 4.41(a)(2) (17 CFR 4.41).

CFTC Enforcement

• Order imposed a $2.5mn penalty on US Commodity Funds and ordered company to cease and desist from further violations of the CEA and CFTC regulations, as charged.
• The penalty obligation will be offset, up to $1.25mn, by the amount of any civil monetary payment made pursuant to the SEC order, within 30 days of made payment.