RBS among banks slapped with €1bn fine
Royal Bank of Scotland and Bar clays are among five banks handed a total of €1.07 billion (£930 million) in fines for taking par tina foreign exchange spot-trading cartel, the European Commission has announced.
Citigroup, JP Morgan and MUFG were also fined by the EU antitrust group in two settlements.
Bar clays, RB S, J PM organ and Citigroup were hit with a combined fine of €811.2 min the first settlement.
The second settlement saw a €257.7m penalty slapped on Barclays, RBS and MUFG Bank (formerly Bank of Tokyo-mitsubishi).
The Commission said the banks colluded on trading strategies to rig the spot foreign exchange market for 11 currencies.
Swiss bank UBS was involved but not fined after it alerted the EC about the two cartels.
The investigation also revealed that some individual traders in charge of foreign exchange spot trading for currencies on behalf of their associated banks exchanged sensitive information and trading plans.
And it said the traders occasionally co-ordinated trading strategies through online chatrooms.
Most of the traders involved in the chatrooms knew each other on a personal basis, with one chatroom called “Essex Express ‘n the Jimmy”, as all the traders except one lived in Essex and met on a train to London.
The first infringement ran from December 2007 to January 2013, while the second ran from December 2009 to July 2012, the commission said.