The CME Group, which holds a dominant position facilitating US futures trading in everything from interest rates to energy, recently increased its transaction fees for the first time in 4 years. The CME Group says the fee increases are necessary to fund additional resources and technology driven by electronic trading growth, but some claim the company is simply taking advantage of its market dominance by charging more to execute trades.

“They’ve become all powerful. They have pricing power, regulatory power and huge market share in the United States,” said a “senior US proprietary trading group executive opposed the fee increases,” as reported by the Financial Times [subscription required].