Boston, MA 08/14/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Various banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) have been issued notification from the regulators in context with the alleged currency rigging. The regulators are in process of preparing enforcement actions on activities associated with currency rigging. It has been alleged that a few financial institutions used rigging (a process of artificially inflating prices at consumers’ expense), thus attracting anti-trust factor.
Investigations into Foreign Exchange Markets Manipulation
Negotiations and discussions are progressing between all the banks, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and U.S. Federal Reserve in order to keenly finish off the investigations into the case involving foreign exchange markets manipulation.
A few of these banks like Bank Of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), have been given 15-day letter underscoring the warnings as well as findings of the agencies, depicting that enforcement actions would most probably take place. In the letter, the details of findings have been highlighted and recipients have been given 15 days for filing their written defense.
Some of the investigations are however, taking much longer because the firms like Bank of America have not responded or progressed as of now, in the 15-day letter; as reported by Bloomberg.
Kinds of Likely Enforcements Actions
The enforcement actions which agencies can take might include cease-and-desist orders as well as fines for banning bankers completely from this industry. In fact, regulators in the U.S. are also co-ordinating with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the U.K. in a move to settle some of the investigations by November of this year.
FCA has also scheduled a few meetings for September 2014 in order to kick off negotiations with a few banks on terms of penalties in form of settlements. Negotiations with banks like JP Morgan, Barclays PLC (ADR)(NYSE:BCS), Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C), HSBC Holdings plc (ADR)(NYSE:HSBC), Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (ADR)(NYSE:RBS) and UBS AG (NYSE:UBS) for settlement shall be scheduled in September with FCA.
So far, the firms have shown co-operation with the U.S. banking regulators as well as FCA for handling over their own probe as well as conducting individual investigations.
