Citigroup hit hardest as EU fines banks $1.2bn over forex trading

Bloomberg

Citigroup Inc., Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are among five banks that agreed to pay European Union fines totalling 1.07 billion euros ($1.2 billion) for colluding on foreign-exchange trading strategies.
Citigroup was hit hardest with a 310.8 million-euro penalty, followed by fines of 249.2 million euros and 228.8 million euros for RBS and JPMorgan, the European Commission said in a statement. Barclays Plc was fined 210.3 million euros and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. must pay nearly 70 million euros as part of the settlement with the EU’s antitrust regulator.
Traders ran two cartels on online chatrooms, swapping sensitive information and trading plans that allowed them make informed decisions to buy or sell currencies, the regulator said. Many of them knew each other, calling one chatroom on the Bloomberg terminal the “Essex Express n’ the Jimmy” because all of the traders but one met on a commuter train from Essex to London. Other names for rooms were the “Three Way Banana Split” and “Semi Grumpy Old Men.”
“Foreign exchange spot trading activities are one of the largest markets in the world, worth billions of euros every day,” EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. “These cartel decisions send a clear message that the commission will not tolerate collusive behaviour in any sector of the financial markets.”
While relatively large, the cartel fines are lower than a 1.3 billion-euro penalty for banks for rigging Euribor rates and below a record 3.8 billion-euro penalty for collusion
between truckmakers.
UBS Group AG escaped a fine because it was the first to tell regulators about the collusion. The five other banks won reduced penalties by striking a settlement with the commission that won’t allow them to challenge the EU’s findings. Credit Suisse Group AG was separately charged by the EU over FX collusion last year. That case involves another online chatroom and banks may be fined at a later date.
The traders’ manipulation of benchmark foreign-exchange rates was exposed in 2013 Bloomberg articles, triggering regulatory probes in the US, the UK and Switzerland. More than a dozen financial institutions have paid about $11.8 billion in fines and penalties globally, with another $2.3 billion spent to compensate customers and investors. Former US attorney general Loretta Lynch in 2015 said the banks engaged in a “brazen display of collusion” to game markets.
“Today’s fine is a further reminder of how badly the bank lost its way in the past and we absolutely condemn the behavior of those responsible,” RBS said in an emailed statement. “This kind of behavior has no place at the bank we are today; our culture and controls have changed fundamentally during the past ten years.”
JPMorgan said the bank is “pleased to resolve this historical matter, which relates to the conduct of one former employee” and has now “made significant control improvements.”
MUFG is “committed to ensuring integrity and compliance with the regulatory authorities in every jurisdiction in which we operate, and have taken a number of measures to prevent this occurring again,” the bank said in a statement.
The fines for Barclays and RBS are covered by the two British banks’ existing provisions and in line with expectations, according to Edward Firth, an analyst with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods in London.
Traders exchanged information about outstanding custom-ers’ orders, bid-ask spreads, their open-risk positions and details of current or planned trading activities.