On May 20, five major banks—Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (“JPMorgan”), Barclays PLC (“Barclays”), The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (“RBS”), and UBS AG (“UBS”)—pled guilty to felony charges related to conduct in the foreign currency exchange (“FX”) spot market. Citicorp, JPMorgan, Barclays, and RBS pled guilty to conspiring to fix prices and rig bids for U.S. Dollars and Euros exchanged in the FX spot market. They agreed to pay fines to DOJ totaling over $2.5 billion. According to the plea agreements, the four banks communicated through electronic chat rooms to manipulate Euro-Dollar exchange rates. They coordinated their trading around the times of two major daily fixes and agreed to withhold bids or offers for euros or U.S. dollars when doing so would benefit each other’s trading positions. UBS pled guilty to wire fraud and agreed to pay a fine of $203 million for its FX-related conduct. As set out in the statement of breach attached to the plea agreement, UBS violated a December 2012 non-prosecution agreement that dealt with an investigation into manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”) and other benchmark interest rates. After signing the non-prosecution agreement, UBS engaged in forbidden FX trading and sales practices. All five banks agreed to be under corporate probation supervised by the court for three years. They have also been fined by other foreign and domestic agencies, including New York’s Department of Financial Services and the Federal Reserve. On the same day, the CFTC ordered Barclays to pay $115 million in connection with its manipulation of ISDAFIX swap rates. United States v. UBS AG, 15-cr-76 (D. Conn.); United States v. Barclays PLC, 15-cr-77 (D. Conn.); United States v. Citicorp, 15-cr-78 (D. Conn.); United States v. JP Morgan Chase & Co., 15-cr-79 (D. Conn.); United States v. The Royal Bank of Scotland PLC, 15-cr-80 (D. Conn.). DOJ Press Release
