Record 5.7 Billion fines for Forex market fix

Record 5.7 Billion fines for Forex market fix

Dark financial clouds

Fines for Forex Market Fix

Five of the world’s largest banks are to pay fines totalling $5.7bn (£3.6bn) for charges including manipulating the foreign exchange market.

Four of the banks – JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup and RBS – have agreed to plead guilty to US criminal charges.

The fifth, UBS, will plead guilty to rigging benchmark interest rates.

Barclays was fined the most, $2.4bn, as it did not join other banks in November to settle investigations by UK, US and Swiss regulators.

Barclays is also sacking eight employees involved in the scheme.

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that “almost every day” for five years from 2007, currency traders used a private electronic chat room to manipulate exchange rates.

Their actions harmed “countless consumers, investors and institutions around the world”, she said.

Separately, the Federal Reserve fined a sixth bank, Bank of America, $205m over foreign exchange-rigging. All the other banks were fined by both the Department of Justice and the Federal Reserve.

Cartel threat

Regulators said that between 2008 and 2012, several traders formed a cartel and used chat rooms to manipulate prices in their favour.

One Barclays trader who was invited to join the cartel was told: “Mess up and sleep with one eye open at night.”

Several strategies were used to manipulate prices and a common scheme was to influence prices around the daily fixing of currency levels.

A daily exchange rate fix is held to help businesses and investors value their multi-currency assets and liabilities.

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For more information:- http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32817114

 

3 Comments

  • A&M Traders

    May 21, 2015

    Quote:
    Their actions harmed “countless consumers, investors and institutions around the world”

    Too bad that they won’t see any of this $5.7bn

  • Michael Kitching

    May 21, 2015

    Here we go again total Forex corruption on a grand scale! Who suffers at the end? WE do…they dont….notice there are NO criminal prosecutions. What other industry would allow this? I have been putting off trading because of the CORRUPT and illegal practices of Forex brokers; however, now I must trade soon as I am running low on income…

    Is there any member of Expert4X who can point to a FAIR broker experience? In fact, isn’t it about time Expert4X reviewed and graded the brokers out there? If we could all trade under one ‘Expert4X’ banner so to speak it would surely give us more ‘clout’…as I think no broker would want to upset a large trading club and lose their custom en masse…or??

    I have a good system which I am afraid to trade because of broker tricks….this is a REAL problem and I am looking for Expert4X to help me/us with it. I dont trust any ‘Review’ sites either!!

    C’mon guys/gals, and c’mon Expert4X if anyone out there has advice please post it or send me an email….thanks.

    best regards
    Mike Kitching (mike_kitching@fastmail.fm)

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