NY Times: Rigging of Foreign Exchange Market Makes Felons of Top Banks
The big banks colluded together to rig the market. And most of this happened AFTER the 2008 financial crisis.
Again no one goes to jail. Exceptions are made and the big banks are back to business as usual.
Rigging of Foreign Exchange Market Makes Felons of Top Banks
By MICHAEL CORKERY and BEN PROTESSMAY 20, 2015
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For the banks, though, life as a felon is likely to carry more symbolic shame than practical problems. Although they could be barred by American regulators from certain activities, the banks scrambled behind the scenes to persuade those regulators to grant exemptions. That process, which delayed the Justice Department’s announcement by a week, already led to the Securities and Exchange Commission providing a number of waivers that allow the banks to conduct business as usual.
~Snip~
To get an edge, prosecutors say, traders at the five banks colluded to pad their returns from at least 2007 and 2013. To carry out the scheme, one trader would typically build a huge position in a currency, then unload it at a crucial moment, hoping to move prices. Traders at the other banks would play along, coordinating their actions in online chat rooms.
The banks also misled their clients about the price of currencies, the federal and state authorities said, imposing “hard markups,” which one Barclays employee described as the “worst price I can put on this where the customer’s decision to trade with me or give me future business doesn’t change.”
In the invitation-only chat room known as “the cartel,” the stakes were high. “Mess this up,” one newcomer was warned, “and sleep with one eye open.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/21/business/dealbook/5-big-banks-to-pay-billions-and-plead-guilty-in-currency-and-interest-rate-cases.html
