Ex-Goldman Trader Accused of $118 Million Loss Denies Fraud

Date: Monday, November 12, 2012
Author: Basil Katz, Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters)—A lawyer for a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. trader denied on Friday [Nov. 9] U.S. civil accusations that his client had defrauded the Wall Street bank of $118 million.

The trader, Matthew Marshall Taylor, was sued on Thursday [Nov. 8] in U.S. District Court in Manhattan by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which said he had manually entered fake trades in November and December 2007, in an attempt to conceal an $8.3 billion position in futures contracts.

"Matt Taylor is disappointed the CFTC filed a complaint about trades in a Goldman proprietary account which took place five years ago," Ross Intelisano, Taylor's New York-based attorney, said in a statement to Reuters on Friday.

"He strenuously denies all of the allegations," the statement said. "Matt never intentionally entered 'fabricated trades' to conceal any trading activity and Goldman never alleged he did so at the time of his termination or thereafter."

The CFTC is seeking a $130,000 civil penalty against Mr. Taylor, who currently resides in Florida. The complaint said Mr. Taylor had concocted a scheme of fabricated trades and fake entries that ended up costing the bank $118.44 million.

Mr. Intelisano said it was Mr. Taylor himself who alerted his managers of the trading losses and not, as the complaint alleges, the other way around.

A Goldman Sachs spokeswoman said on Thursday that the bank had terminated Mr. Taylor's employment after his suspected conduct had been discovered, and that customer funds had not been affected.

After leaving Goldman, Mr. Taylor went on to work at Morgan Stanley, broker records showed. A Morgan Stanley spokesman said Mr. Taylor had left the bank in July.

The case is U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission v. Matthew Marshall Taylor, case No 12-cv-8170, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

By Basil Katz