Federal enforcement
Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Michele Spagnuolo
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1:26-cv-04419
Pending
Complaint filed May 27, 2026; no later rulings were found. The CFTC's claims are allegations.
The question
Whether the CFTC's anti-fraud rules reach prediction-market trades based on an employer's confidential information.
The CFTC sued Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo in federal court in Manhattan on May 27, 2026, alleging that he traded at least 23 Polymarket contracts on Google's 2025 Year in Search results using confidential information he obtained through his job, for about $1.2 million in profit. It seeks restitution, disgorgement, penalties, trading bans and an injunction. These are allegations. A parallel criminal case is pending in the same court.
Docket timeline
The CFTC filed a civil complaint in the Southern District of New York (No. 1:26-cv-04419), in parallel with the unsealing of a criminal complaint.
Source: cftc.gov