Standard Chartered, Societe Generale are among four banks added to Forex Lawsuit by investors 

Standard Chartered Plc and Societe Generale SA are among four banks added to a suit by investors claiming banks manipulated the $5.3 trillion a day foreign-exchange market.

The investors filed a revised complaint Friday in which they broadened their claims against the 16 banks named as members of a conspiracy among traders who used computer chat rooms with names including “The Cartel,” “The Mafia” and “The Bandits’ Club” to illegally coordinate their actions.

The suit was filed by individuals, institutional investors and hedge funds that took part in foreign exchange swaps, futures, options and spot transactions from 2003 to 2013. Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. and RBC Capital Markets were also added to the case.

Bank of America Corp., UBS AG, JPMorgan Chase and Co. and Citigroup Inc. previously settled foreign-exchange claims in the suit for a total of $808.5 million, Scott+Scott LLC, a law firm representing the foreign-exchange customers, said Friday in a statement.

Lawyers for the customers told the judge overseeing the suit in a filing July 16 that settlements with other defendants in the case remain undisclosed. Michael Hausfeld, a lawyer for the investors, said in an interview the next day that additional settlements with HSBC Holdings Plc, Barclays Plc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and BNP Paribas SA could be announced soon.

Provided Evidence

Many of the new allegations are drawn from evidence provided by some of the banks that settled, Scott+Scott said in the statement. The new complaint includes pages of transcripts from chat-room conversations, most of which are blacked out in the public version.

The investors claim the banks rigged the foreign-exchange market by manipulating foreign-exchange benchmark rates, fixing prices by agreeing to widen bid/ask spreads on spot trades and exchanging confidential customer information to trigger stop-loss and limit orders.

Authorities in the U.S., Europe and Asia have scrutinized bank traders around the globe for evidence they colluded to rig financial benchmarks that affect everything from mortgages to retirement products to cross-border money flows. The probes have yielded billions of dollars in fines and in some cases criminal convictions.

Representatives of Standard Chartered, Societe Generale, Bank of Tokyo and RBC Capital Markets didn’t immediately respond to calls after business hours seeking comment on the filing.

The case is In Re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation, 13-cv-07789, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Source: Bloomberg – Standard Chartered, Societe Generale Added to Forex Lawsuit

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