UBS will pay $545M for manipulating foreign-exchange rates. First of 5 expected settlements today

First in what is expected to be a string of settlements announced on Wednesday:

UBS Hit With $545 Million in Fines, from the Wall Street Journal.

The bank will pay $342M to the Federal Reserve Bank for manipulating foreign-exchange rates. The Department of Justice will void a previous deferred prosecution agreement for manipulating Libor and levy a $203M fine in addition to the previous $500M paid to DoJ for Libor manipulation. Although the $203M is a direct result of the for-ex manipulation violating the Libor DPA, I’m going to score that in the Libor category.

UBS will also give a guilty plea to one felony charge. Article does not make it clear which specific company any conglomerated entity will take the hit. I think it might be the holding company.

Settlements for manipulating forex, including a criminal guilty plea, are expected later today with DoJ by four more banks:

  • Barclays
  • J.P. Morgan
  • Citigroup
  • RBS

Speculation I’ve read hints at around $4B settlement for those four. Ultimate amount of settlements will be far higher, I am guessing, because the NYDFS isn’t included in any of those guesses.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *