Gary Gensler, Chairman
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission
3 Lafayette Centre
1155 21st St., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20581
Mary L. Schapiro, Chairman
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
100 F St. N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20549
Dear Chairman Gensler / Dear Chairman Schapiro:
I’m enclosing a copy of a report distributed July 6 by Bloomberg News Service about the U.S. government’s prosecution of a former employee of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. involving the purported theft of a Goldman Sachs computer trading program. The report quotes Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Faccipointi as saying in U.S. District Court in New York City: “The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways.”
If the report quotes the assistant U.S. attorney correctly, and if he was characterizing Goldman Sachs’ position correctly, then Goldman Sachs claims to have possession of a computer trading program that can manipulate markets. The assistant U.S. attorney’s comment can be construed to suggest Goldman Sachs considers its own manipulation of markets to be fair, while such manipulation by others would be unfair.
The court proceeding described in the Bloomberg News story would seem to impugn all markets in which Goldman Sachs trades. On behalf of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc., I ask your commission to investigate Goldman Sachs’ trading program urgently and report its findings publicly.
