London Court Hears £1B Forex-Rigging Case Against Five Banks
Aziz Abdel-Qader, 05 November 2019
The case accusing Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS of foreign exchange rigging is scheduled to be heard at London’s tribunal on Wednesday.
The five global banks are facing a £1 billion ($1.3 billion) class-action lawsuit that seeks to compensate pension funds, asset managers, hedge funds, and corporations that lost out because these banks participated in a market manipulation scheme between 2007 and 2013. However, the total value of potential fines will depend on the number of forex trades executed in London, and the proportional impact of rate-rigging on GBP trades.
More specifically, the UK-based lawsuit alleges the banks in question acted in concert to manipulate either prices for bids, offers, or spreads for currency spot trades. They are expected to lay out charges of illegal activities conducted by those banks before imposing fines, which can reach 10 percent of their global turnover.
Scott + Scott is representing the investors in the current lawsuit that was filed at the Competition Appeal Tribunal back in June. The firm’s US arm, which opened a European office to lead the UK claim, led the class action suit that generated the original $2.3 billion in settlements two years ago. Other banks have also faced huge fines for allowing their traders to club together to rig prices in FX markets.
