5 Big Banks to Pay Billions and Plead Guilty in Currency and Interest Rate Cases
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Source: New York Times
Adding another entry to Wall Streets growing rap sheet, five big banks have agreed to pay more than $5 billion and plead guilty to multiple crimes related to manipulating foreign currencies and interest rates, federal and state authorities announced on Wednesday.
The Justice Department forced four of the banks Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, and the Royal Bank of Scotland to plead guilty to antitrust violations in the foreign exchange market as part of a scheme that padded the banks profits and enriched the traders who carried out the plot. The traders were supposed to be competitors, but much like companies that rigged the price of vitamins and automotive parts, they colluded to manipulate the largest and yet least regulated market in the financial world, where some $5 trillion changes hands every day.
Underscoring the collusive nature of their contact, which often occurred in online chat rooms, one group of traders called themselves the cartel, an-invitation only club where stakes were so high that a newcomer was warned mess this up and sleep with one eye open. To carry out the scheme, one trader would typically build a huge position in a currency and then unload it at a crucial moment, hoping to move prices. Traders at the other banks agreed to, as New York States financial regulator put it, stay out of each others way.
The banks also misled their clients about the price of currencies, the federal and state authorities said, imposing hard mark-ups, which one Barclays employee described as the worst price i can put on this where the customers decision to trade with me or give me future business doesnt change. Or, to put their mission in the starkest of terms, the employee said: if you aint cheating, you aint trying.
Read more: 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
on point
(2,506 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)malthaussen
(17,193 posts)Heretofore, all judgements against banks have allowed them to disavow wrongdoing even while paying the fines.
-- Mal
markmyword
(180 posts)Why are the bankers getting a pass? They worked together to manipulate world currencies and all they get for punishment is a fine!!
So can we tell the next guy who steals $5.00 worth of groceries from a store or embazzles money from his employer that that's ok, we'll just fine you for your mistake!
These bankers SHOULD BE IN JAIL!!!!!
What's with all these fines the U.S. Government keeps dishing out?
THEY'RE CRIMINALS and should be put in jail for a VERY LONG TIME!!!!!!
mahannah
(893 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)to the detriment of working people.
How can anyone see what's going on and NOT see that we are, in fact, an oligarchy? NOT a free marketplace where companies compete.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)No one goes to jail. How nice, they/we pay their fine and off they go to do it again.
Sissyk
(12,665 posts)Duplicate of this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141098423