Capital Markets Tribunal finds Oasis World Trading manipulated markets
The tribunal found the firm was not required to register, because an exemption under National Instrument 31-103 applied to its proprietary trading model. But of 643 instances of alleged spoofing across Canadian and Australian markets, the tribunal found the elements of market manipulation were established in 568, finding the respondents knew or ought to have known it was happening. Spoofing, the tribunal explained, typically involves placing an order that improves the quoted price of a security, executing a trade on the opposite side at an advantage, then cancelling the original order before it fills. The tribunal pointed in part to an internal chat message in which the chief compliance officer warned traders that “all orders MUST have the intention of being filled” and called a pattern of large orders being placed and quickly cancelled “unacceptable” – evidence the tribunal cited as proof of awareness that manipulation was occurring.
The tribunal cleared the respondents of a separate allegation involving 10,511 wash trades, transactions in which Oasis was both buyer and seller. It found the firm reasonably relied on its executing broker’s coding instructions and compliance alerts, meant to keep such trades off the public record, though a configuration error the broker itself missed meant they failed.
The tribunal drew a firmer line on compliance, finding Oasis failed to establish and maintain adequate systems of control and supervision, conduct it ruled contrary to the public interest even though the firm was not required to register. The tribunal noted that the chief compliance officer was effectively the only person monitoring trading activity across the firm’s entire network of traders, that compliance audits lapsed for roughly three years, and that Oasis reviewed only a small fraction of the alerts its broker’s system generated.
The tribunal also found Oasis breached electronic trading rules by giving new traders access to its systems without notifying its broker as required. In 2019 alone, 86 new traders were granted access without notice being provided. Both officers were held personally responsible for that breach, given their roles as the firm’s only director-officers.
The panel has directed the parties to contact the tribunal’s registrar by August 12, 2026, to arrange a case management hearing – to be held no later than August 28, 2026 – that will set a schedule for arguments on sanctions and costs.
