Futures market operator CME Group will respond to a request from the CFTC to broaden its rules against wrongdoing, with "the most immediate and likely target" being traders who engage in spoofing. Regulators have focused in recent years on fighting spoofing, after a provision against it was implemented as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform.

Spoofing typically involves using computer algorithms to influence market prices by placing electronic orders with the intent to cancel them before execution.

The owner of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBT) and other exchanges has previously prohibited manipulation, fraud and other "bad faith" actions, but attempts at such activities were not expressly prohibited.

By making ‘attempts to engage in fraudulent or bad-faith actions’ into general offenses, CME's rule book "more closely tracks the prohibitions set forth" by the CFTC, according to the company's notice. The changes are set to take effect on 2/16/17.

In December, CME raised the maximum possible fine for rule breakers to $5 million per offense from $1 million in a bid to deter wrongdoing.

A month earlier, a British trader, Navinder Sarao, became the 2nd person convicted of criminally spoofing U.S. futures markets.