The former head of cotton at Glencorehas personally sued rival Louis Dreyfus Commodities, accusing the trading house of market manipulation in a rare move that sheds light in the inner workings of the cotton markets.
Mark Allen claims in his lawsuit that Dreyfus and several subsidiaries inflated the price of cotton futures between May and July 2011. Mr Allen was fired from Glencore after the trading house lost more than $330m last year trading the fibre.
In effect, the lawsuit indicates that a member of the cotton’s insular trading fraternity believes the futures market for the commodity was manipulated for weeks last year, forcing consumers of the fibre to pay higher prices.