On March 4, 2009, the SEC instituted settled administrative and cease-and-desist proceedings against Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing, L.P. and SLK-Hull Derivatives LLC, stating: "This matter involves violations by GSEC and SHD of their basic obligation as specialists to serve public customer orders over their own proprietary interests. As specialist firms on each of the Exchanges, GSEC and SHD had a general duty to match executable public customer or “agency” buy and sell orders and not to fill customer orders through trades from the firms’ own accounts when those customer orders could be matched with other customer orders. From 1999 through 2005 (the “Relevant Period”), GSEC and SHD violated this obligation by filling orders through proprietary trades rather than through other customer orders, thereby causing customer orders to be disadvantaged by approximately $6 million."

The SEC stated that: "[It] brought enforcement actions against 14 specialist firms for unlawful proprietary trading on several regional and options exchanges. The firms agreed to settle the SEC's charges by collectively paying nearly $70 million in disgorgement and penalties. The SEC charged the specialist firms for violating their fundamental obligation to serve public customer orders over their own proprietary interests by "trading ahead" of customer orders, or "interpositioning" the firms' proprietary accounts between customer orders."