A rogue trader at a London oil broker caused his employer to lose $10m (£6m) after making unauthorised trades.
PVM Oil Futures said it was a "victim of unauthorised trading" on Tuesday, 30 June, and said it was now conducting a full investigation.
The rogue trader, believed to be Steve Perkins, has been suspended.
PVM said it had informed the Financial Services Authority and the InterContinental Exchange (ICE), the location for much European oil trade.
Firms have systems to pick up oddities and anomalies... The question is how fast were they able to get on top of it and deal with it
Nick McGregor, Redmayne Bentley
The trades are thought to have caused a jump in the price of Brent crude oil on Tuesday. PVM said it was now conducting business as normal.
"As a result of a series of unauthorised trades, substantial volumes of futures contracts were held by PVM. When this was discovered, the positions were closed in an orderly fashion. PVM suffered a loss totalling a little under $10m," the company said in a statement.
"There are a range of procedures that are followed to look at trading patterns, price movement and levels of activity," explained David Peniket, the president of ICE Futures Europe, which trades futures and energy and commodity contracts.
"It will investigate and follow up, and where appropriate, action will be taken," he added.
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