EU Regulators Fine Five Banks For Forex Spot Trading Cartels

European Union regulators on Thursday fined five global banks a total of 1.07 billion euros, or $1.2 billion, for participating in foreign exchange spot trading cartels and manipulating the foreign-exchange currency market.

The five banks are Barclays plc (BCS,BARC.L), Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS,RBS.L), Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Japan's MUFG Bank, formerly known as Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. The banks will pay fines ranging between 69.7 million euros and 310.8 million euros, with Citibank handed the biggest fine.

Swiss bank UBS Group AG (UBS) was exempted from a fine of about 285 million euros as the bank in 2013 revealed the existence of the cartels to the Commission. UBS received full immunity for revealing the existence of the cartels.

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