CFTC orders $172,000 penalty in federal employee insider trading case on event contracts
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission ordered Gabriel Perez to pay $172,000 for insider trading of event contracts on August 28. Perez used nonpublic information from his federal government job to trade contracts the CFTC describes as swaps. The case centered on trading based on access to presidential speeches. The settlement marks an enforcement action where political nonpublic information was traded for personal advantage.
The Perez settlement gives the CFTC a template it can drop onto any federal employee who trades political nonpublic information. Speechwriters, policy staff, and legislative aides now face predictable civil liability if they trade event contracts. Platforms must build surveillance that flags accounts linked to federal employment or risk hosting the next case.
Kalshi's cooperation with the investigation may shield it from Rule 180.1 exposure. Competitors without similar monitoring will absorb the next enforcement action. The three-year trading ban is a novel platform-level sanction regulators can replicate. A second federal employee case within weeks would confirm the CFTC has made this category a standing priority.
The Perez order joins a concentrated CFTC enforcement push across the event-contract space that includes a criminal insider-trading prosecution involving Polymarket and a warning to platforms on odds-display compliance.