Starting in 2000, the marketing, services and trading company CMS began conducting energy trades without economic justification. As stated in the Securities and Exchange Commission's cease-and-desist order ¡§CMS materially overstated its revenues, expenses, and energy trading volumes in 2000 and 2001 through the use of undisclosed round-trip energy transactions conducted by its Houston-based energy trading division. , MS&T.¡¨ These trades are now known as “round trip” trades. CMS issued false press releases describing the transactions as low margin transactions when in reality there was no margin. The Company admits that $5.2 billion of these transactions were carried out in 2000 and 2001. Round-trip transactions Round-trip transactions or wash trades are simultaneous and pre-arranged energy purchase-sale transactions with the same counterparty, at the same price and volume, and over the same duration, resulting in neither profit nor loss for either party to the transaction. No money is made or lost, but transactions may create the appearance of higher trading volumes and revenue. The Securities and Exchange Commission found in 2004 that in recording revenues and expenses from round-trip transactions, CMS overstated its revenues and expenses by a total of $5.2 billion over a one-year period : $1.0 billion (10% of revenue) in 2000 and $4.2 billion (36% of revenue) for the first three quarters of 2001. Likewise, CMS overestimated by 78 the volume of energy trading reported by MS&T. % in 2000 and 72% in 2001. The back-and-forth trading inflated CMS's sales and influenced stock prices. As pressure increased on companies to increase their trading activities, these fictitious transactions apparently became common practice. Along with CMS Energy, Duke Energy, Dynegy Inc. and Reliant Resources Inc. all admitted to engaging in back-and-forth transactions. CMS Energy said all of its round-trip transactions were made with Dynegy Inc. or Reliant Energy Services. LCG Consulting has discovered that the SEC has conducted a formal investigation into Dynegy and that last week, Reliant revealed its involvement in round-trip trading equivalent to a ten percent increase in its revenue between 1999 and 2001. The round-trip trading -Reliant's returns accounted for 20 percent of all its trades last year. Dynegy has denied participating in anything inappropriate and is said to have cooperated with investigators. Four major energy companies all made an unethical decision and helped manipulate the energy market. The result In 2002, management admitted that CMS Energy had recorded $4.4 billion in round-trip trades and inflated its revenues by as much.