Banks Fined $1 Billion-Plus By European Commission

The European Commission has fined five banks a total $1.2 billion for their roles in foreign exchange trading cartels. The banks are Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Traders from each traded currencies including the euro, the pound, the yen and the United States dollar for major companies, pension funds and asset managers. The traders were direct competitors, but the commission found that they had exchanged trading plans, shared sensitive information and coordinated strategies. “Some of the traders created chat rooms and then invited one another to join, based on their trading activities and personal affinities, creating closed circles of trust,” said the commission. The cartels operated from December 2007 to January 2013. Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s commissioner for competition policy, released a statement noting that foreign exchange spot trading activities are among the largest markets in the world, worth billions of euros every day, and the behavior of the banks undermined the integrity of the sector at the expense of the European economy and consumers.