Wiand v. ATC Brokers Ltd, et al. was filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, on May 28, 2021.  The complaint was filed by a Receiver appointed in an action brought by the Commodity Futures Trade Commission (the “CFTC”) alleging the operation of a Ponzi scheme.  The complaint alleges (1) aiding and abetting fraud, (2) aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duties, (3) gross negligence, and (4) simple negligence.  In addition, the complaint seeks to avoid alleged fraudulent transfers received by ATC Brokers Ltd.

Plaintiff is the court appointed Receiver over Oasis International Group, Limited, Oasis Management LLC, and Satellite Holdings Company (the “Oasis Entities”) in an action filed by the CFTC, titled Commodity Futures Trade Commission v. Oasis International Group, Limited, et al., Case No. 8:19-cv-00886-VMC-SPF (M.D. Fla. Apr. 15, 2019).  Defendants include: (1) ATC Brokers Ltd., the exchange firm the Ponzi scheme operators used to carry out the scheme; (2) Spotex LLC, the entity that provided the software used to carry out the Ponzi scheme; and (3) an owner of both entity Defendants.

According to the complaint, in the action brought by the CFTC, it alleged five individual Defendants operated the Oasis Entities as a Ponzi scheme, victimizing the Oasis Entities and hundreds of their investors who believed they were investing money to be successfully traded in the foreign exchange market.  The investors paid the Oasis Entities more than $78 million for their investments to be in pooled to trade in the foreign exchange market in two commodity pools.  In reality, only a fraction of the investment funds, roughly $22,000,000, were used for foreign exchange trading.  The remainder of the funds were used to make return payments to investors in furtherance of the Ponzi scheme and to support the scheme’s operators and employees.  The funds that were used for foreign exchange trading were lost due to poor trading.

The complaint alleges there were several red flags the Defendants ignored when dealing with the individual operators and Oasis Entities in order to receive large commissions, including that they were not registered as required by the Commodity Exchange Act and lack of proper anti-money laundering and Know Your Customer due diligence.  Additionally, Spotex LLC allegedly provided a white label software that allowed the scheme operators to provide false account records to investors and the Defendants knew the information shown to investors was false.  The complaint seeks to avoid all transfers made by the Oasis Entities to the Defendants as fraudulent and for damages to be determined at trial.