The trillion-dollar markets for futures, swaps, commodity options, and related derivatives are extremely important to the global economy because, among other things, they influence the prices that people pay for everything from heating oil and bread to the interest rates connected to mortgages...

In recent years, a small group of financial institutions have paid billions of dollars to settle civil and criminal claims that they formed cartels to rig the prices of certain critically important financial instruments and to stifle competition in others. For example, bankers would rig global...

Institutional investors contend that high-frequency trading (HFT) firms engage in high-speed “pinging” and “front running” of their large orders for trades. By sending out lightning fast “ping” orders for trades that operate much like sonar in the ocean, HFT firms can detect when...

In the years leading up to the financial crisis of 2008, investment banks used tactics that were misleading and unfair in marketing, selling and dealing in complex swaps and other over-the-counter derivatives. With the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, Congress amended federal law to direct the futures...