The U.S. National Futures Association (NFA) has today announced that it has permanently barred one of its Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) member firms, TGI Capital Management Limited (TGI) based in the U.K., over its failure to file certain paperwork in connection with its NFA membership Obligations as a CTA.
The administrative proceeding was triggered following no responses from prior attempts of the NFA to contact TGI in related to recent missed filings, including from a complaint issued by NFA's Business Conduct Committee (BCC) at the end of last year.
These efforts from the regulator were to no avail and resulted in no further replies from TGI - according to the NFA - and which led to the new complaint dated February 24, 2016 and filed today by the NFA barring TGI permanently.
The complaint referenced that TGI failed repeatedly to file its quarterly Form PR statements in violation of rule 2-46. While the registration history page for TGI on the NFA's website shows that it had been repeatedly withdrawn on coinciding dates, suggesting it may have been withdrawn by NFA over previous late-filings automatically.
Is TGI's Principal Aware of Bar Yet? Appeal Possible
TGI may appeal the decision to the appeals committee of the NFA by filing a written notice of appeal with NFA's secretary within 15 days, and which must describe any related exceptional circumstances related to the allegedly violated rules in the complaint along with any request for written or oral argument or review, unless it is appealed or reviewed, according to the transcript signed by the BCC Chairman.
According to an NFA background affiliation status information center (BASIC) search for TGI, there is at least on principal listed with the company under the name Gregory N. Ofulue - still a currently approved associated person registered at TGI, and TGI's status as a CTA includes offering foreign currency related products (OTC Forex ), and registered with the CFTC.
The company is doing business as Teknogroup Asset Management Ltd, among other brand names including TGCM, and located in London. It's possible that the CTA has no client funds under management and decided to no be proactive with filing, or if it maintains assets under management what will this news mean for TGI's customers? If TGI had no funds under management currently, rather then get barred the CTA could have withdrawn membership (thus avoiding filing and related needs), where if there are funds held there may be more to this story, and now that the CTA has been barred.
Finance Magnates reporters attempted to contact TGI but the call went to voicemail. A LinkedIn profile for Ofulue lists a number of additional licenses, beyond the series III and 31 that he holds as per the NFA basic page.