Former energy company executive goes to prison for insider trading

HOUSTON — A former energy company president is going to prison for an illegal kickback scheme involving insider trading in commodities.

Matthew Clark, 56, pleaded guilty to honest services wire fraud, commodities insider trading and prohibited commodities transactions.

U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks sentenced the Needville man to 78 months in prison and ordered him to pay $7,709,509 in restitution and forfeit $6,532,360.

Hanks noted that Clark made a calculated choice to commit these offenses despite the risk of being caught, and in doing so, “he gambled and lost.”

The federal government says Clark was a natural gas trader and president of a Houston-based energy company. He conspired with others to receive millions of dollars in kickbacks from commissions paid by Clark’s employer to Classic Energy LLC, a brokerage firm owned and operated by Matthew Webb. In exchange for the bribes, Clark allegedly agreed to direct his employer’s trades to the Webb brokerage.

“Matthew Clark turned his company’s commodities trading operations over to a broker in exchange for more than $5.5 million in illegal kickbacks. He also misappropriated confidential information about his company’s planned commodity trades and used that information to enrich himself and his co-conspirators,” said Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri.

Webb pleaded guilty in June 2021 to conspiracy to commit commodity fraud and wire fraud and to violate various provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act.

Clark’s co-conspirators, John Ed James, 54, of Katy, and Peter Miller, 49, of Puerto Rico, also pleaded guilty and are expected to be sentenced soon.

“When corporate insiders engage in insider trading and other deceptive business practices for their own financial gain, they not only harm the company, they also undermine the integrity of our markets financial,” Argentieri said. “This groundbreaking investigation was the first to produce results in criminal convictions for insider trading in commodities. It will not be the last.”

The FBI’s Houston Field Office conducted the investigation.

“Securities and commodities fraud may be a nonviolent crime, but it certainly does not claim victims: it undermines public confidence in U.S. markets and stacks the deck against traders and fair investors,” said Special Agent in Charge Douglas Williams.

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