On May 29, the CFTC announced an investigation of oil trading, looking for direct evidence that traders deliberately sought to skew the markets.

From Bloomberg:

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"The key to this is: what is the intent of the trading?" said Geoffrey Aronow, a former head of enforcement for the CFTC. "Is the sole intent to try to move the price of the commodity -- in this case, crude oil? Or does the trading have a reasonable commercial justification?"

Record-high oil costs have prompted lawmakers to press for scrutiny of whether speculative trading is artificially pushing up prices artificially.

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It's a very Enronesque scenario.