EU fines banks €1bn for currency rigging – By BBC Staff (BBC) / May 16 2019
Five banks have been fined a total of €1.07bn (£935m) by the European Commission for forming illegal cartels to rig the foreign exchange market.
Four banks in the “Banana Split” cartel – Barclays, RBS, Citigroup and JP Morgan – were fined €811m in all.
Another three banks in the “Essex Express” cartel – Barclays, RBS and MUFG – were fined €258m.
A sixth bank, UBS, was excused financial penalties for revealing the cartels’ existence.
The European Commission said the market-rigging took place from 2007 to 2013.
Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said the banks’ behaviour “undermined the integrity of the sector at the expense of the European economy and consumers”.
Similar fines for manipulating the currency markets were imposed in 2014 by UK, US and Swiss regulators.
Circles of trust
The Commission’s investigation, which began in September 2013, revealed that some individual foreign exchange traders, using online chatrooms, exchanged trading plans and occasionally co-ordinated their trading strategies.
“Most of the traders participating in the chatrooms knew each other on a personal basis,” said the Commission.
“For example, one chatroom was called Essex Express ‘n the Jimmy because all the traders but ‘James’ lived in Essex and met on a train to London.
“Some of the traders created the chatrooms and then invited one another to join, based on their trading activities and personal affinities, creating closed circles of trust.”
Information that the traders exchanged related to:
- Outstanding customers’ orders (names of clients, currencies and amounts involved)
- Prices applicable to specific transactions
- Open risk positions in different currencies
- Other details of current or planned trading.
Their chats “enabled them to make informed market decisions on whether to sell or buy the currencies they had in their portfolios and when”, the Commission said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48292946
