Tag: London

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Article: London forex trader sues Citigroup over ‘malicious’ forex prosecution

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London forex trader sues Citigroup over ‘malicious’ forex prosecution

Kirstin Ridley, 02 October 2019

Rohan Ramchandani, the former European head of Citigroup’s forex spot market trading desk, alleges in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday that Citigroup made false and “gravely derogatory” assertions against him to government investigators and the media after firing him in 2014 without cause.

“Ultimately, Citi quite literally fabricated an antitrust case for the United States Department of Justice against Ramchandani based upon knowingly false allegations that he engaged in market ‘manipulation’ and ‘collusion’,” read the complaint filed in the federal court in Manhattan.

A spokeswoman for Citigroup in London said the bank rejected the allegations and would fight the case.

“Mr. Ramchandani’s claims of malicious prosecution are without merit and we will contest them vigorously,” she said.

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Article: ECB’s Draghi brushes off Trump charge of currency manipulation

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ECB’s Draghi brushes off Trump charge of currency manipulation

News Desk, 19 June 2019

June 19: European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said Tuesday that the institution “doesn’t target the exchange rate”, shrugging off an allegation of currency manipulation from US President Donald Trump.

“We have our remit. We have our mandate. Our mandate is price stability” or inflation just below two percent, Draghi told a central banking conference in Sintra, Portugal.

“We are ready to use all the instruments that are necessary to fulfil this mandate, and we don’t target the exchange rate,” he added.

Draghi’s statement that weak economic growth and sluggish inflation could prompt the ECB to slash further rates already at historic lows had earlier sparked Trump’s ire.

“Mario Draghi just announced more stimulus could come, which immediately dropped the Euro against the Dollar, making it unfairly easier for them to compete against the USA,” Trump said on Twitter.

“They have been getting away with this for years, along with China and others,” he added.

Draghi said in a speech that “further cuts in policy interest rates… remain part of our tools” as the bank looks to juice growth and inflation.

Eurozone policymakers had already discussed potential rate cuts in early June, but Draghi’s latest remarks were the first to catch markets’ full attention.

That was in part because he said the central bank was ready to move “in the absence of improvement” rather than if economic conditions worsen, lowering the threshold for action.

But Trump later in the day continued to imply that the ECB was somehow looking to gain an advantage, rather than responding to economic conditions in the euro area.

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Article: UK banks fined €1bn by EU for rigging foreign exchange market

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UK banks fined €1bn by EU for rigging foreign exchange market

Kalyeena Makortoff, 16 May 2019

Five banks including Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland have been fined more than €1bn (£875m) by the European Union for rigging the multitrillion-dollar foreign exchange market.

The European commission said the banks, which also include Citigroup, JP Morgan and MUFG (Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group), formed two cartels to manipulate the spot foreign exchange market for 11 currencies, including the US dollar, the euro and the pound.

The commission’s penalty adds to the £1.3bn in fines imposed by the UK Financial Conduct Authority in 2014 over the same case. While the FCA’s penalty focused on the lender’s breach of regulations, the EU’s fine deals with how their behaviour dampened competition.

“These cartel decisions send a clear message that the commission will not tolerate collusive behaviour in any sector of the financial markets,” the European competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said in a statement.

The banking industry has been hit with billions in fines worldwide over the last decade for rigging benchmarks used in many day-to-day financial transactions, and are now at risk of private lawsuits.

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Article: How ex-JP Morgan silver trader’s guilty plea could boost manipulation claim against bank

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How ex-JP Morgan silver trader’s guilty plea could boost manipulation claim against bank

Dawn Giel, Dan Mangan, 13 November 2018

A previously secret guilty plea by a former commodity trader at J. P. Morgan Chase, who admitted that he rigged precious metals markets, has drawn the attention of a lawyer who has already accused traders at the nation’s largest bank of similar conduct.

The lawyer, David Kovel, told CNBC he was struck by how much in common his civil case pending in New York federal court against J. P. Morgan Chase has with the conduct outlined in the ongoing criminal case in Connecticut against John Edmonds.

Edmonds, a 36-year-old Brooklyn resident, pleaded guilty in October to fraudulently manipulating the precious metals markets from 2009 to 2015.

He admitted working with “unnamed co-conspirators” at his former employer, J. P. Morgan, the Justice Department made public Nov. 6, when it unsealed the case in U.S. District Court in Connecticut.

Edmonds’ criminal plea related to “spoofing,” a certain type of improper trading that has been the subject of a broader regulatory crackdown on market manipulation in the decade since the 2008 financial crisis.

So far this year, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has announced 26 enforcement actions that involved market manipulation, attempted manipulation, false reporting, spoofing or deceptive conduct. That is more than double the number in 2017 — and six times that in 2016.

Prosecutors said Edmonds learned the deceptive strategy “from more senior traders” at the bank, and that he “personally deployed this strategy hundreds of times with the knowledge and consent of his immediate supervisors.” His guilty plea related specifically to trading in silver futures contracts, as well as in gold, platinum and palladium futures.

Nearly four years ago, Kovel sued J. P. Morgan on behalf of a colorful hedge fund operator and big-stakes poker player, Daniel Shak, and two metals traders, Mark Grumet and Thomas Wacker. The civil lawsuit accused J. P. Morgan of manipulating the silver futures market from 2010 through 2011, costing Kovel’s clients $30 million in losses.

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Article: A big short growing in Italian debt

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A big short growing in Italian debt

Abhinav Ramnarayan, Saikat Chatterjee, 09 November 2018

LONDON (Reuters) – A surge of interest in Italian bond futures may be a sign of a substantial short position building up in the derivatives market as tensions rise over budget negotiations between Rome and Brussels.

The big short in the futures market reflects a buildup in speculative and hedging activity after a tumultuous summer in the Italian markets and also indicates rising concerns of capital outflows. Continue reading “Article: A big short growing in Italian debt”

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Article: The London Whale resurfaces: Bruno Iksil speaks out

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The London Whale resurfaces: Bruno Iksil speaks out

Lucy McNulty, 17 April 2017

Bruno Iksil, the former City trader known as the “London Whale”, has spent the past five years at home with his family in France, about 50 miles south of Paris. He runs, cycles or swims each day. He plays card games with his kids and helps with their homework.

But, on January 11, he received a call from his New York lawyers that threatens to upend all that.

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Article: UK central bank drawn into market manipulation scandal

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UK central bank drawn into market manipulation scandal

Associated Press, 10 April 2017

LONDON – British politicians are seeking an investigation into allegations that the Bank of England was also involved in manipulating a key market interest rate during the financial crisis.

The BBC says it has a recording from 2008 between officials at Barclays bank that indicates the Bank of England was trying to influence the interest rate, called Libor. Several banks have been fined billions for tampering with the interest rate, which is used to price services like loans globally.

Labour party lawmaker John McDonnell says “this is an extremely serious revelation that contradicts past assurances about the role of the Bank of England in the Libor scandal.”

The central bank told the BBC that Libor was not regulated at the time and that it has been helping in past investigations.

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Article: BlackRock, PIMCO said to plan new front in bank FX-rigging cases

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BlackRock, PIMCO said to plan new front in bank FX-rigging cases

Bloomberg, 05 March 2017

Some of the world’s biggest investors are working with a U.S. law firm to prepare a fresh wave of litigation against banks accused of rigging foreign-exchange markets.

BlackRock, Pacific Investment Management Co. and hedge fund BlueCrest Capital Management are working with law firm Quinn Emanuel to recover losses they blame on the manipulation of currency benchmarks, according to two people familiar with the case, who asked not to be identified because nothing has been filed.

The target banks, including Barclays, Citigroup, HSBC Holdings, J.P. Morgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and UBS Group, have been fined billions of dollars for conspiring to rig FX benchmarks. The firm, which will probably file lawsuits in London and New York, is trying to attract additional investors, the people said.

Quinn Emanuel’s clients will likely opt out of an existing New York class action over currency manipulation that won a total of about $2 billion in settlements from HSBC, Barclays, RBS, Goldman Sachs Group and others in 2015, according to people with knowledge of the firm’s strategy.

Opting out of the class action would allow large investors to seek higher settlements by pursuing a global strategy that includes the recovery of losses from London, where a significant portion of global trades are settled. The existing class action is limited to transactions that took place in New York.

The two law firms that are running the existing U.S. lawsuit, Hausfeld and Scott + Scott, won’t give up control of the case without a fight.

In an April 24 letter emailed to U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield, lawyers complained that “certain unnamed law firms were sending false and misleading communications to class members to persuade them to opt out of the settlements,” the judge said in a court order Thursday. She set a May 12 deadline for the two firms to make a formal request as to what she should do in response.

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Article: FBI arrests senior HSBC banker accused of rigging multibillion-dollar deal

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FBI arrests senior HSBC banker accused of rigging multibillion-dollar deal

Rupert Neate in New York and Jill Treanor in London, 20 July 2016

Mark Johnson and a colleague allegedly defrauded clients and ‘manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank’

A senior HSBC banker has been arrested by the FBI as he attempted to board a transatlantic flight and charged him with fraudulently rigging a multibillion-dollar currency exchange deal.

Mark Johnson, a British citizen and HSBC’s global head of foreign exchange trading, and a colleague are accused of “defrauding clients” and alleged to have “corruptly manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank”.

He was arrested on Tuesday night shortly before he was due to fly to London from New York’s JFK airport, and was due to be formally charged by a judge at Brooklyn federal court later on Wednesday. He was later released on bail.

A second Briton, Stuart Scott, who was HSBC’s European head of foreign exchange trading in London until December 2014, is accused of the same crimes. A warrant was issued for Scott’s arrest.

They are the first people to be charged in connection with the US government’s long-running investigation into bankers’ alleged rigging of the $5.3tn (£4tn) per day forex market.

“The defendants allegedly betrayed their client’s confidence, and corruptly manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank,” said the US assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell. “This case demonstrates the [US Department of Justice’s] criminal division’s commitment to hold corporate executives, including at the world’s largest and most sophisticated institutions, responsible for their crimes.”

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Article: Deutsche Bank hit by record $2.5bn Libor-rigging fine

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Deutsche Bank hit by record $2.5bn Libor-rigging fine

Jill Treanor, 23 April 2015

Germany’s Deutsche Bank has been fined a record $2.5bn (£1.7bn) for rigging Libor, ordered to fire seven employees and accused of being obstructive towards regulators in their investigations into the global manipulation of the benchmark rate.

The penalties on Germany’s largest bank also involve a guilty plea to the Department of Justice (DoJ) in the US and a deferred prosecution agreement. The regulators released a cache of emails, electronic messages and phone calls showing the attempts to move the rate used to price £3.5tn of financial contracts. Continue reading “Article: Deutsche Bank hit by record $2.5bn Libor-rigging fine”

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Article: Regulators fine global banks $4.3 billion in currency investigation

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Regulators fine global banks $4.3 billion in currency investigation

Kirstin Ridley, Joshua Franklin, Aruna Viswanatha, 12 November 2014

Regulators fined six major banks a total of $4.3 billion for failing to stop traders from trying to manipulate the foreign exchange market, following a yearlong global investigation.

HSBC Holdings Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc, UBS AG and Bank of America Corp all faced penalties resulting from the inquiry, which has put the largely unregulated $5-trillion-a-day market on a tighter leash, accelerated the push to automate trading and ensnared the Bank of England.

Authorities accused dealers of sharing confidential information about client orders and coordinating trades to boost their own profits. The foreign exchange benchmark they allegedly manipulated is used by asset managers and corporate treasurers to value their holdings.

Dealers used code names to identify clients without naming them and swapped information in online chatrooms with pseudonyms such as “the players”, “the 3 musketeers” and “1 team, 1 dream.” Those who were not involved were belittled, and traders used obscene language to congratulate themselves on quick profits made from their scams, authorities said.

Wednesday’s fines bring total penalties for benchmark manipulation to more than $10 billion over two years. Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority levied the biggest penalty in the history of the City of London, $1.77 billion, against five of the lenders.

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Article: Why I Will Never Buy Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, HSBC Holdings plc And Standard Chartered PLC

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Why I Will Never Buy Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, HSBC Holdings plc And Standard Chartered PLC

Rupert Hargreaves, 10 November 2014

The godfather of value investing, Benjamin Graham, made it quite clear that the process of investing is nothing like speculation: “An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and a satisfactory return.” On the other hand, speculation is more akin to gambling, with no return guaranteed.

With this in mind, it’s easy to arrive at the conclusion that banks, which rely on leverage and trading to make a living, can never be deemed true ‘investments’ due to the speculative nature of their businesses. And this is the reason why I’m staying away from banks like Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS), HSBC (LSE: HSBA) and Standard Chartered (LSE: STAN). Continue reading “Article: Why I Will Never Buy Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, HSBC Holdings plc And Standard Chartered PLC”

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Article: Criminal investigation into possible price rigging in London foreign exchange market

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Criminal investigation into possible price rigging in London foreign exchange market

Merco Press, 22 July 2014

The United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has launched a criminal investigation into allegations of price rigging in the £3tn-a-day foreign exchange market. The probe will look into allegations of “fraudulent conduct”, the director of the SFO said in a statement.

Around 15 international agencies are investigating allegations of collusion and price manipulation. It is alleged that traders used online chat-rooms to plan the fixing of benchmark prices.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said in October it had joined other regulators around the world in scrutinizing firms over the potential manipulation of the foreign exchange market.

Several investment banks, including Barclays and HSBC have already suspended currency traders due to the investigation by the FCA. And in March this year the Bank of England suspended one member of staff over the probe.

At the time the head of the Financial Conduct Authority, Martin Wheatley, said that currency manipulation was “every bit as bad” as the Libor scandal, where banks including Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS paid fines totaling 6bn dollars relating to Libor fixing.

For the criminal probe the SFO will work in co-operation with the FCA and the US Department of Justice, which announced its own criminal investigation last October.

Earlier this year US prosecutors flew to London to question individuals over allegations of market manipulation.

The Serious Fraud Office is an independent UK government department responsible for investigating and prosecuting serious and complex fraud, bribery and corruption. It is headed by the Director, David Green CB QC, who exercises powers under the superintendence of the Attorney General. These powers are derived from the Criminal Justice Act 1987.

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Article: Osborne to target foreign exchange manipulation in City clean-up

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Osborne to target foreign exchange manipulation in City clean-up

Kamal Ahmed, 02 June 2014

The obscure and complicated foreign exchange market is to be the next target of Treasury action, I have been told.

The chancellor is working with Whitehall officials and the international Financial Stability Board (FSB) on new regulations which will be imposed on the market. At the moment, foreign exchange (known in City shorthand as “forex”) is largely unregulated and left to the bank traders who execute deals on behalf of global companies. Companies use forex deals to move money between different currencies and a large part of the market is dealt through London.

One senior official I have spoken to agreed that the public would be “very surprised” that such a major market was clearly open to abuse. The Treasury is likely to announce a set of measures to “clean up the market”, probably in the next fortnight.

The prices in forex are set by traders who are doing the deals. Traders are able to pick a selection of the trades they have been asked to execute, meaning they can choose those most advantageous to their bank. The prices are set at the 4pm “fix”, a daily City benchmark against which currencies are priced. I have written a short “How It Works” at the end of this blog on the allegation that forex is manipulated.

Regulators around the world including the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in London and the US Department of Justice are investigating allegations of forex manipulation. It has been reported that at least 15 banks are involved and nine are thought to have suspended or fired traders. No allegations have been proved and no admissions of fault made.

Martin Wheatley, the head of the FCA, said the allegations, if substantiated, could be “every bit as bad as Libor”, referring to the revelations three years ago that the market which governs how banks lend to each other was regularly fixed.

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Article: London Gold Fix study suggests decade of bank manipulation

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London Gold Fix study suggests decade of bank manipulation

Bloomberg News, 28 February 2014

The London gold fix, the benchmark used by miners, jewellers and central banks to value the metal, may have been manipulated for a decade by the banks setting it, researchers say.

Unusual trading patterns around 3 p.m. in London, when the so-called afternoon fix is set on a private conference call between five of the biggest gold dealers, are a sign of collusive behavior and should be investigated, New York University’s Stern School of Business Professor Rosa Abrantes-Metz and Albert Metz, a managing director at Moody’s Investors Service, wrote in a draft research paper.

“The structure of the benchmark is certainly conducive to collusion and manipulation, and the empirical data are consistent with price artificiality,” they say in the report, which hasn’t yet been submitted for publication. “It is likely that co-operation between participants may be occurring.”

The paper is the first to raise the possibility that the five banks overseeing the century-old rate —Barclays Plc, Deutsche Bank AG, Bank of Nova Scotia, HSBC Holdings Plc and Societe Generale SA — may have been actively working together to manipulate the benchmark. It also adds to pressure on the firms to overhaul the way the rate is calculated. Authorities around the world, already investigating the manipulation of benchmarks from interest rates to foreign exchange, are examining the $20 trillion gold market for signs of wrongdoing.

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