WASHINGTON: Six global banks will pay more than $5.6 bn to settle allegations that they rigged foreign exchange markets, in a scandal the FBI said involved criminality “on a massive scale”.
Four banks also agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to fix prices and rig bids in the $5.3tn a day forex market, in what they hope will draw a line under one of the biggest cases of misconduct in banking since the global financial crisis.
Announcing the settlement, the US Department of Justice said that between December 2007 and January 2013, traders at Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland who described themselves as “The Cartel” used an exclusive chatroom and coded language to manipulate benchmark exchange rates, “in an effort to increase their profits”.
Loretta Lynch, the US attorney-general, said the penalties the banks will pay were “fitting”, and “commensurate with the pervasive harm that was done”. The fines should “deter competitors from chasing profits without regard to fairness to law or public welfare”.
