Pimco [profile] just fired a 12-year company veteran after he settled with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) for nearly $68,000.

Effective December 19, Pimco senior vice president Rahul Seksaria settled with the CME Group over allegations that, two and a half years earlier, he “orchestrated and prearranged trades in the June 2015 Eurodollar futures contract opposite one of his employer’s client suspense account, which resulted in the transfer of $2,675 from the suspense account to personal trading account.”

MFWire could not reach spokespeople for Pimco or the CME Group for comment on Seksaria’s settlement and departure. Daniel Tarman, a spokesman for Pimco, tells Bloomberg that Seksaria was “dismissed from the firm based on a violation of the firm’s policy regarding personal trading.”

“While the amount involved in this matter was small, Pimco’s code of ethics mandates that all employees must abide by the highest standards of personal and professional conduct,” Tarman tells Bloomberg in an e-mailed statement.

Mary Childs of Bloomberg reports that Seksaria’s last day at Pimco was Friday, December 19. StreetInsider.com reports that Pimco fired Seksaria. (Bloomberg, too, later reported that Pimco fired Seksaria.) He joined Pimco in 2002, Bloomberg reports, after working “in trading and structuring in energy and other commodities at Enron Corp.”

On November 14, Pimco liquidated two mutual funds -- the Pimco Real Income Fund 2019 Fund and the Pimco Real Income 2029 Fund -- that Seksaria PMed. They held less than $20 million combined as of the end of October. He also joined the Pimco Tax Managed Real Return Fund’s PM team in September and was one of 15 members of Pimco’s portfolio committee of the Americas, Bloomberg reports.

Seksaria was charged by a panel of the CME probable cause committee on July 9 of this year. On November 13, a hearing panel chair from the CME’s business conduct committee (BCC) found that, by not answering the charges, Seksaria “was deemed to have admitted the charges issued.” Seksaria “voluntarily submitted” to the BCC’s jurisdiction and submitted a settlement offer. A BCC panel found that Seksaria committed the alleged actions.

Under the settlement, Seksaria has to pay at $65,000 fine, plus $2,675 in restitution, and he’s barred from using the CME for three months, through March 19, 2015. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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