Helping clients navigate complex investigations and litigations.
Financial institutions and other corporations of all sizes are increasingly being presented with complex challenges associated with capital markets participation and regulatory compliance. Monument Economics Group (MEG) provides financial regulatory and trade forensics consulting solutions to financial institutions and other corporations that face legal, regulatory, and compliance challenges resulting from their participation in capital markets.
MEG’s team of data science investigators and former financial regulators helps clients navigate complex investigations and litigations related to market manipulation, market microstructure, and other legal, regulatory, and compliance issues. In doing so, we combine years of regulatory experience with varying sizes of quantitative and qualitative data from both public and proprietary sources across diverse markets to understand client matters and generate bespoke solutions to assist clients.
Our team brings experience across a wide range of enforcement cases involving the CFTC, DOJ, FBI, FINRA, and SEC. We serve as expert witnesses, are experienced in developing litigation-grade code and analytics, and have successfully supported clients with regulatory investigations and litigations.
Creating bespoke analyses through quantitative and qualitative data to help clients navigate complex investigations and litigations related to:
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Spoofing & Layering
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Profit & Loss/Damages/Disgorgement
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Excessive Messaging
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Pump-and-Dump/Short-and-Distort
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Insider Trading
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Front-Running
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Preferential Trade/Investment Allocation
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Mutual Fund Market Timing
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Financial Investigations
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FCPA
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Valuation
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Hedge Funds
Spoofing & Layering
Monument Economics Group experts have extensive experience analyzing large datasets to assess trading patterns and detect potential spoofing and layering behavior. We have analyzed proprietary trading and order book data for various markets, including those for precious metals futures and treasury futures, using internally developed algorithms. We have calculated the economic benefits that accrue to traders engaging in spoofing and layering behavior as well as the economic harm to the wider market, in addition to a variety of other analyses. We also have experience analyzing cross-market and cross-exchange spoofing and layering activity.
Profit & Loss/Damages/Disgorgement
Monument Economics Group has assisted with profit and loss, damages, and disgorgement analyses at all phases of the litigation cycle and for a variety of financial instruments, including equities, derivatives (futures, options, and swaps), commodities, fixed-income, foreign exchange, and cryptocurrency.
Excessive Messaging
Monument Economics Group consultants have worked with large datasets to assess the presence and extent of excessive messaging, or the excessive submission of orders, modifications, and cancellations by traders to affect the market.
Pump-and-Dump/Short-and-Distort
Monument Economics Group experts have evaluated trading strategies, assessed stock price inflation and deflation through the use of event studies (including intraday event studies), and calculated profits for various investigations involving pump-and-dump and short-and-distort market manipulation schemes. These schemes involve the purchase of a security and subsequent spreading of positive rumors about the security in order to inflate the price (for pump-and-dump schemes) or the short sale of a security and subsequent spreading of negative rumors about the security in order to deflate the price (for short-and-distort schemes).
Insider Trading
Monument Economics Group consultants have experience with all phases of insider trading investigations and litigations, including materiality assessments, analyses of trading patterns, and calculations of the economic benefits derived from the trading activity.
Front-Running
Monument Economics Group experts have analyzed proprietary and client trading data to assess the presence and extent of front-running, whereby a proprietary trader with knowledge of a large forthcoming client order transacts with the market ahead of the client order in order to obtain a better price than the client and to ultimately profit.
Preferential Trade/Investment Allocation
Monument Economics Group consultants have designed and run statistical tests (including Monte Carlo simulation) and conducted profit and loss analyses for matters involving preferential trade/investment allocation (“cherry-picking”), whereby brokers place trades with an allocation/omnibus account and then transfer profitable trades to their own and family members’ accounts and place unprofitable trades in other customers’ accounts.
Mutual Fund Market Timing
Monument Economics Group experts have analyzed a mutual fund trader’s market timing strategy and measured the extent to which the trader accrued economic benefits from the strategy.
Financial Investigations
Monument Economics Group experts have investigated regulatory compliance concerns related to inappropriate transfers of funds, the adequacy of financial statement disclosures, performance calculations, false or inaccurate regulatory filings, false or inaccurate books and records, and the misuse of monies by fund representatives (including the investigation of Ponzi schemes). We have experience tracing transactions through internal financial statements, accounting records, bank statements, wire transfers, journal entries, and other types of transactional documents/ledgers to assess the legitimacy of company records.
FCPA
Monument Economics Group consultants have assisted with regulatory investigations involving the FCPA, including analysis and calculation of the benefit accrued to a company from gaining early access to a lucrative asset that the company would not have had but-for a bribe made to foreign officials.
Valuation
Monument Economics Group consultants have experience applying valuation methods, including discounted cash flow and comparable company/transaction valuation models, in regulatory investigations.
Hedge Funds
Monument Economics Group experts have analyzed hedge fund performance relative to benchmarks as well as fund disclosures as part of regulatory investigations.
