US and British regulators have slapped massive fines on six major global
banks for rigging the foreign exchange market and Libor interest rates.
They called the banks' frauds 'brazen schemes' to harm clients.In a settlement announced by the US Justice Department on Wednesday, the banks agreed to pay close to $6 billion (5.3 billion euros) in fines for their manipulations.
The deal included guilty pleas from UK-based Barclays Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland, as well as US banks JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. They admitted to conspiring to manipulate the massive currency market.
Switzerland's UBS also pleaded guilty - in its case for one count of wire fraud in connection with Libor interest rate manipulations. However, the Justice Department granted the Swiss bank conditional immunity for cooperating with the investigation.
Together, the five banks agreed to a record $2.5 billion in criminal penalties, the largest set of antitrust fines ever obtained by the Department of Justice.
In addition, these five banks, plus the Bank of America, will pay more than $1.8 billion in fines to the US Federal Reserve over "unsafe and unsound practices" in forex markets.
Note EU-Digest: If someone steals a bar of chocolate in a grocery store, he or she can go to prison for a week including paying a fine. These banker crooks just pay a fine out of the billions they already stole from you and me and continue their life.
Read more: Six top banks fined for forex, Libor abuses | Business | DW.DE | 20.05.2015
