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Summary: The Department of Justice slams five major banks with the largest antitrust violations fines for rigging the US dollar to euro exchange rate.
The Department of Justice has reached an agreement with Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Barclays PLC, the Royal Bank of Scotland PLC, and UBS A.G. over allegations of rigging the U.S. dollar to euro exchange rate. The five major banks will plead guilty to felony charges and pay over $5 billion combined.
UBS A.G. will plead guilty to a one-count charge of wire fraud for manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate, as well as other benchmark interest rates. UBS is required to pay $203 million in criminal penalties for breaking its December 2012 nonprosecution agreement from the rate probe. The other four banks will plead guilty to a one-count felony charge of conspiring to rig bids and fix prices. Barclays will pay an additional $60 million penalty for violating their June 2012 nonprosecution agreement for its foreign currency exchange practices.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the banks acts as “brazenly illegal”. She promised to strongly prosecute those that aim to take advantage of the American consumers. The Department of Justice will be making the banks pay a combined $2.5 billion for antitrust violations with Citicorp paying $925 million of that charge. Their fine is the largest ever for a single violation of the Sherman Act. The banks will be assessed fines from other sources such as The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority, and the Federal Reserve.
The banks will also have to seek waivers from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators to be allowed to manage pensions, issue securities, and other things as felons.
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Photo: bass.house.gov
