CME Group Prevails In Lawsuit Over Grain Settlement Rules

[April 01, 2014]  By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO (Reuters) — CME Group Inc can keep in place rules that factor in electronic trades for settling end-of-day grain futures prices, an Illinois judge ruled on Monday following a legal challenge from veterans of the Chicago trading floor.

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Jean Prendergast Rooney in Chicago ruled that CME Group, which owns the Chicago Board of Trade, had the authority to implement the settlement method in June 2012.

A group of traders from the CBOT's 140-year-old agricultural trading floor sued the exchange in June 2012 to overturn the method, saying that it was putting them out of business. Prior to the change, CME Group had a century-old tradition of settling futures prices for crops like corn and soybeans based on transactions executed in open-outcry pits.

(Reporting by Tom Polansek; editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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