I have long pointed to how retail clients can be exploited by their brokers trading system by the broker monitoring the often two-step order entry process and frontrunning their orders that are in the process of entry. This can also merely be done by knowing the position size of a client and pushing hard in the direction they are trying to trade.
I have had some unusual 'coincidences' on large trades I was entering on illiquid and rarely traded stocks, and I remain suspicious of more than one broker platform, but what can you do. Brokers control the portals to the market, and if you end up with unscrupulous staff at your broker, or even worse an unscrupulous organization, what can you do?
However, this is the first I have read of a broker actually being accused of such.
"Saxo Bank is being accused of threatening and illegally detaining an employee[9] and of front running and manipulation of client orders."
