It wouldn’t be a week without the world’s criminal banks coming under investigation illegal activity and this week didn’t disappoint as six of the world’s largest banks are under investigation for possible foreign-exchange market rigging, this time in South Korea.
The investigation has been launched by South Korea’s antitrust watchdog and involves Barclays, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS.
According to The Seoul Economic Daily, the Korean investigation is looking into how alleged foreign currency price fixing of U.S. dollars and euros and derivatives markets, by the six lenders adversely affected South Korean businesses.
This investigation comes hot on the heels of the same six lenders being fined nearly $6 billion in total by US and British regulators for fixing foreign exchange markets and Libor interest rates, and the launch last May of an investigation by South Africa’s competition watchdog into foreign currency price fixing by Citigroup, Barclays, and other banks.
The latest investigation, again, raises the question: At what point are ‘global banks’ considered criminal organizations?
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