Commodity Traders Offer £1m Following FCA Competition Probe

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is consulting on a commitments package offered by 11 commodity futures day traders under investigation for suspected competition law infringements. The regulator's concern centres on whether the individuals exchanged commercially sensitive information about their trading and/or coordinated their trading strategies, conduct that risks restricting competition in markets that depend on participants reaching trading decisions independently.

The proposed commitments would see the traders change how they handle sensitive information, undertake annual competition law training and make a £1m ex gratia payment to the Crisis and Resilience Fund, which supports low-income households in financial hardship. Notably, the FCA has reached no view on whether competition law was breached, and offering commitments carries no admission of infringement.

The structure of the package merits attention for those tracking the FCA's competition enforcement toolkit. The regulator considers the financial commitment is likely to exceed any penalty it could impose following an infringement finding, given that penalties under the Competition Act 1998 are capped at 10% of the relevant party's turnover in the year preceding any decision. For day traders, that turnover-linked ceiling materially constrains the deterrent value of a formal penalty, which helps explain why a negotiated commitments route producing a larger sum may appeal to the regulator as a means of resolution without the evidential burden of proving infringement.

The commitments mechanism under the Competition Act 1998 allows firms and individuals under investigation to offer binding undertakings to address competition concerns, which the FCA may accept after consulting affected third parties. The consultation opened alongside the notice and closes on 14 July 2026, after which the FCA will decide whether to accept the package and close the investigation.

Read the press release here.