CFTC may proceed with civil case against Global FX Club, Michael Wright
Magistrate Judge Debra C. Freeman has granted the CFTC Motion to lift the stay on the civil case against Michael Wright and his company Wright Time Capital Group LLC, a/k/a Global FX Club.
The civil case that the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has brought against Michael Wright and his company Wright Time Capital Group LLC, or Global FX Club, may proceed. An order, signed by Magistrate Judge Debra C. Freeman on Monday, April 2, 2018, says that the stay on the case is lifted.
The CFTC may now seek a certificate of default against Wright Time Capital Group, the Judge explained.
The stay got into effect in August 2017 because of the pendency of a related criminal matter. On October 13, 2017, Mr Wright pled guilty in the criminal matter to Count One of the Indictment against him (commodities fraud) pursuant to a written plea agreement with the government. Mr Wright was continued on bail.
In January this year, he was sentenced to 21 months in prison. Back then, the US Government argued that a sentence of imprisonment would help ensure the defendant appreciates the seriousness of his fraud.
The CFTC charged Mr Wright and his companies with fraud, misappropriation, and issuing false account statements in connection with a pooled investment in Forex trading. The CFTC Complaint stated that from approximately August 2010 through the present, the defendants engaged in a fraudulent scheme to solicit more than $400,000 from at least 10 members of the public, promising to use pool participant funds for FX trading.
The investors in WTCG were mostly friends, family members and acquaintances of the defendant. While Mr Wright did initially invest the victims’ money in Forex transactions, WTCG started to lose a significant amount of money because of WTCG’s poor trading performance. Instead of being transparent with investors about their losses because of his poor trading performance, the defendant falsified account statements, used new cash inflows from victims to pay back previous investors, and in some instances used investor money to pay for his own personal expenses.
The case is captioned U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Wright et al (1:17-cv-04722).