You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

5 Top Banks to Pay $5B Penalty for Rigging Foreign Exchange

HeadlineMay 21, 2015

Five of the world’s top banks will pay over $5 billion in fines after pleading guilty to rigging the price of foreign currencies. Attorney General Loretta Lynch unveiled the plea deal.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch: “We are here to announce a major law enforcement action against international financial institutions that for years participated in a brazen display of collusion and foreign exchange rate market manipulation, and will, as a result, pay a total of nearly $3 billion in fines and penalties. As a result of our investigation, four of the world’s largest banks have agreed to plead guilty to felony antitrust violations. They are Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Barclays PLC and the Royal Bank of Scotland PLC.”

UBS is also expected to plead guilty to charges and pay a $500 million fine. The Justice Department is voiding a previous non-prosecution agreement with UBS over its violations of the terms. No individual bank employees were hit with criminal charges, meaning no one will go to jail.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top