The Andersons Inc.: CBOT, CFTC, EPA, and OSHA Penalties

The Andersons, Inc., an Ohio-based agribusiness, has faced a string of settlements and regulatory violations over the past two decades covering commodity market manipulation, environmental reporting failures, and workplace safety. The largest matters include a $2 million Chicago Board of Trade fine for wheat futures conduct in late 2017, a $10 million class action settlement to resolve related manipulation claims, a $3.4 million CFTC penalty against subsidiary Lansing Trade Group, a $1.73 million EPA settlement over toxic release reporting at four ethanol plants, and OSHA citations following the deaths of two workers in a grain bin.

The 2017 Wheat Futures Case and $2 Million CBOT Fine

On June 26, 2020, the Chicago Board of Trade Business Conduct Committee ordered The Andersons to pay a $2 million fine over its trading in Soft Red Winter Wheat futures and options in late 2017. The company settled without admitting or denying the findings.¹

According to the CBOT, The Andersons held more than 60 percent of the short open interest in the December 2017 SRW wheat contract the day before First Notice Day. On November 29, 2017, the firm registered 2,000 contracts of SRW wheat certificates for delivery. The exchange said the registration was designed to widen the spread between December and later-month futures. To set up the move, the CBOT found, The Andersons sold wheat to flour mills in the Toledo, Ohio area beforehand to reduce local demand, and placed bids in front-month spreads at prices outside normal trading ranges, anticipating that the large registration would push prices into those bids. After the registration caused December futures to fall and the spread to widen, the company repurchased 1,330 of the 2,000 certificates between December 4 and December 22 at lower prices.¹²

The CBOT cited three violations of Rule 432: conduct inconsistent with just and equitable principles of trade, acts detrimental to the interest or welfare of the Exchange, and dishonorable or uncommercial conduct. In a statement to Reuters, The Andersons confirmed the settlement but said, “We do not believe we engaged in any wrongdoing,” and noted that it had cooperated with the investigation.²

The $10 Million Class Action Settlement

The exchange fine was not the end. In 2020, wheat futures traders sued The Andersons and Cargill in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The case, Dennis v. The Andersons, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-04090, alleged the two companies coordinated their late-2017 activity to manipulate CBOT Soft Red Winter Wheat futures and options prices. Plaintiffs brought claims under the Commodity Exchange Act, the Sherman Antitrust Act, and Illinois unjust enrichment law, alleging the defendants signaled an intent to sell 10 million bushels of wheat to suppress demand, pushing December 2017 and March 2018 futures prices down and widening the spread between them.³

On May 7, 2025, Judge Robert W. Gettleman granted class certification in part, appointing Richard Dennis and Port 22, LLC as class representatives. The certified class included people and entities who purchased certain long or short positions in December 2017 or March 2018 SRW wheat futures and options between November 30 and December 14, 2017. The plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. Craig Pirrong, offered a damages model estimating the manipulation caused a price depression of 1.2 cents per bushel on March 2018 SRW wheat futures, and the court found that methodology adequate to support class-wide treatment.³⁴

On May 28, 2026, the parties filed an unopposed motion for preliminary approval of a class action settlement. The Andersons and Cargill each agreed to pay $5 million, for a combined total of $10 million.⁵ As of mid-2026, the court had not yet granted final approval.⁶

Lansing Trade Group and the $3.4 Million CFTC Penalty

Another manipulation case reached The Andersons through its acquisition of Lansing Trade Group, LLC. The Andersons had held about one-third of Lansing’s equity and bought the remaining stake in October 2018 in a deal valued at over $700 million, folding Lansing into its Grain Group.⁷

Months before that acquisition closed, on July 12, 2018, the CFTC issued an order settling charges against Lansing for two schemes. In the first, during roughly a week in early March 2015, Lansing purchased and canceled 250 CBOT wheat shipping certificates marked as containing 3 parts-per-million vomitoxin. The CFTC found this was meant to signal false demand for that grade of wheat and lift the value of Lansing’s own long wheat spread and call option positions. The firm coordinated with a market newsletter writer to publicize the move; a Lansing trader told the writer to “give it the gas tonight.” In the second scheme, on February 19, 2015, Lansing aided and abetted another grain company’s attempt to manipulate corn prices in Columbus, Ohio, by knowingly executing physical corn transactions at below-market prices so the counterparty could use the resulting data to drive down the local corn basis.⁸⁹

Lansing consented to the order without admitting or denying the findings. The CFTC imposed a $3.4 million civil monetary penalty and required tighter internal controls, updated compliance policies, and anti-manipulation training. CME Group separately fined Lansing $3.15 million for the wheat conduct, bringing total sanctions for these schemes to $6.55 million.⁸

$1.73 Million EPA Settlement Over Toxic Release Reporting

On August 17, 2022, the EPA announced a $1.73 million settlement with The Andersons Marathon Holdings LLC, a joint venture between The Andersons and Marathon Petroleum Corp., to resolve 131 violations of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. The agency said it was the largest penalty it had ever obtained under that statute for Toxics Release Inventory reporting failures.¹⁰

The violations occurred at four ethanol plants in Logansport, Indiana; Albion, Michigan; Greenville, Ohio; and Denison, Iowa. Between 2016 and 2020, the company failed to file, filed late, or filed inaccurate annual reports on chemicals released from its fermentation vapor streams, including benzene, ethylbenzene, and toluene. The EPA split the penalty into two consent agreements: about $1.52 million covering 99 violations at the Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio plants under Region 5, and roughly $209,000 covering 32 violations at the Iowa plant under Region 7.¹¹ As part of the deal, the company filed the missing reports, corrected data for 2015 through 2020, and agreed to specific protocols for future reporting of fermentation chemicals including acetaldehyde, methanol, and formaldehyde.¹⁰

In July 2025, The Andersons acquired Marathon Petroleum’s remaining 49.9 percent stake for $425 million, took full ownership of the four ethanol facilities, and renamed the entity The Andersons Renewables, LLC.¹²

Grain Bin Deaths and OSHA Citations

In July 2019, two workers at The Andersons’ grain facility on Edwin Road in Toledo, Ohio were killed when corn engulfed them inside a storage bin. The employees, ages 56 and 29, had entered the bin to clear a clogged floor opening. Once they dislodged a hardened clump, the grain began flowing and buried both men. A third coworker escaped. Both victims died of asphyxiation.¹³

OSHA cited The Andersons for two willful violations, for failing to develop an emergency action plan with rescue procedures and failing to shut down grain equipment before workers entered the bin, along with two serious violations tied to engulfment hazards and uncovered floor holes. Proposed penalties totaled roughly $292,000, and OSHA placed the company in its Severe Violator Enforcement Program.¹⁴ The most recent available records list the citations as contested.¹³

Earlier CFTC Action and Overall Penalty Record

The Andersons’ commodity practices drew federal scrutiny well before the 2017 wheat episode. On January 12, 1999, the CFTC issued an order finding that between 1994 and 1995 the company offered illegal off-exchange futures known as “Convertible Hedge to Arrive” contracts and illegal agricultural options marketed as “short option feature call contracts” and “Min/Max” contracts. The Andersons settled without admitting or denying the findings, paid a $200,000 civil penalty, and agreed to have senior executives vet all new hedge-to-arrive and option-feature contracts for legal compliance.¹⁵

Across all subsidiaries and affiliates, The Andersons has accumulated over $8 million in regulatory penalties since 2000 across roughly 50 recorded cases, according to the Violation Tracker database maintained by Good Jobs First. The largest categories include about $4.1 million in environmental penalties across 19 records, the $3.4 million CFTC penalty against Lansing, roughly $548,000 in workplace safety and health fines across 29 records, and about $116,000 in railroad safety violations.¹⁶

1
CME Group. CBOT 17-0851-BC-1 The Andersons Inc
2
Reuters. CME Group Fines Andersons Inc $2 Million for Wheat Trading Violations
3
Courthouse News Service. Dennis v. The Andersons Inc. Class Certification Opinion
4
CCH. Dennis v. The Andersons Inc.
5
Law360. Cargill, The Andersons Ink $10M Deal to End Wheat Futures Suit
6
2017 CBOT Wheat Futures Class Action. Court Documents
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The Andersons, Inc. The Andersons Inc to Acquire Lansing Trade Group LLC
8
CFTC. CFTC Orders Lansing Trade Group LLC to Pay $3.4 Million
9
CFTC. Lansing Trade Group LLC CFTC Order
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U.S. EPA. EPA Reaches $1.7 Million Settlement Over Alleged Toxics Release Inventory Reporting
11
Des Moines Register. EPA: Denison Ethanol Plant, 3 Others Failed to Report Toxic Release Data
12
The Andersons, Inc. The Andersons Inc Reports Second Quarter Results and Acquires Full Ownership Interest in The Andersons Marathon Holdings LLC
13
OSHA. Inspection Detail 1416467.015
14
U.S. Department of Labor. OSHA Citations for The Andersons Inc Toledo Ohio
15
CFTC. CFTC Docket No. 99-5 The Andersons Inc
16
Good Jobs First. Violation Tracker – Andersons Inc