{"id":158931,"date":"2017-02-20T17:05:24","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T15:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=158931"},"modified":"2017-02-20T17:05:24","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T15:05:24","slug":"citibank-to-pay-massive-fine-in-sa-currency-trading-collusion-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/158931\/citibank-to-pay-massive-fine-in-sa-currency-trading-collusion-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"Citibank to pay massive fine in SA currency trading collusion scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Competition Commission says it has filed with the Competition Tribunal a settlement agreement reached with Citibank for being part of the forex trading cartel.<\/p>\n<p>Three South African banks were implicated among 17 banking groups in \u2018widespread\u2019 collusion relating to the the price-fixing of the rand.<\/p>\n<p>Following an almost two-year investigation into the matter, the Competition\u00a0Commission last week referred the collusion case to the Competition Tribunal for prosecution.<\/p>\n<p>In a press statement on Monday (20 February), the commission said it found that from at least 2007, Citibank and its competitors had a general agreement to collude on prices for bids, offers and bid-offer spreads for the spot trades in relation to currency trading involving US dollar\/rand currency pair.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Further, the commission found that Citibank and its competitors manipulated the price of bids and offers through agreements to refrain from trading and creating fictitious bids and offers at particular times.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/158521\/head-traders-and-directors-named-in-sa-banking-collusion-scandal\/\" target=\"_blank\">Head traders and directors named in SA banking collusion scandal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Citibank, the commission said, will pay an administrative penalty of R69,500,860.<\/p>\n<p>This figure does not exceed 10% of Citibank\u2019s annual turnover in the Republic of South Africa, it said. &#8220;Citibank undertook to cooperate with the Commission and avail witnesses to assist the prosecution of the other banks that colluded in this matter,&#8221; the commission said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis settlement was done to encourage speedy settlement and full disclosure to strengthen the evidence for prosecution of the other banks,\u201d said the commissioner, Tembinkosi Bonakele.<\/p>\n<p>The 17 banks implicated include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bank of America Merrill Lynch International<\/li>\n<li>BNP Paribas<\/li>\n<li>JP Morgan Chase &amp; Co<\/li>\n<li>JP Morgan Chase Bank<\/li>\n<li><strong>Investec<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Standard New York Securities<\/li>\n<li>HSBC Bank<\/li>\n<li>Standard Chartered Bank<\/li>\n<li>Credit Suisse Group<\/li>\n<li><strong>Standard Bank of South Africa<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Commerzbank AG<\/li>\n<li>Australia and New Zealand Banking Group<\/li>\n<li>Nomura International<\/li>\n<li>Macquarie Bank<\/li>\n<li><strong>ABSA Bank Limited (ABSA)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Barclays Capital<\/li>\n<li>Barclays Bank<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/157915\/sa-banks-face-massive-fines-over-price-fixing-and-collusion\/\" target=\"_blank\">3 South African banks face massive fines for price-fixing and collusion<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Competition Commission says it has filed with the Competition Tribunal a settlement agreement reached with Citibank for being part of the forex trading cartel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":158555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-158931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158931"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158943,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158931\/revisions\/158943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}