On March 4, 2009 the SEC instituted settled administrative and cease-and-desist proceedings against TD Options LLC. The Commission stated "This matter involves violations by TD Options of its basic obligation as a specialist to serve public customer orders over its own proprietary interests. As a specialist firm on each of the Exchanges, TD Options 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 firm’s own account when those customer orders could be matched with other customer orders. From 1999 through 2005 (the “Relevant Period”), TD Options violated this obligation by filling orders through proprietary trades rather than through other customer orders, thereby causing customer orders to be disadvantaged by approximately $5 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."