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Forex-rigging investigation: George Osborne gives full backing to SFO
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The UK Treasury will hand the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) all the funds it needs to conduct a criminal investigation into alleged rigging of the $5.3tn-a-day currency market, a Treasury source has said.
This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason.
The source said a letter by the chancellor, George Osborne, to the SFO states: “I understand that the SFO is in the early stages of a major investigation into forex trading. Given the importance of this work, the Treasury will provide the required funding for this investigation.”
The SFO launched a criminal investigation into allegations of fraudulent conduct in the foreign exchange market in July and said individuals could be charged next year. This is in addition to a regulatory clampdown which resulted in six major banks being fined a total of $4.3bn (£2.6bn) on Wednesday.
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The banks were fined for failing to stop traders from trying to manipulate the foreign exchange market, after a year-long global investigation. The levies brought total penalties for manipulation of financial benchmarks to more than $10bn over two years.
Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America Corp and UBS were hit with penalties; Barclays is in talks with authorities over a settlement.
