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U.S. authorities have charged three former foreign exchange (FX) traders at major investment banks with conspiracy to manipulate prices in the global FX markets.

The three former traders voluntarily surrendered to the FBI and were charged with one count in connection with an alleged conspiracy to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars and euros in the FX spot market.

The indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charges Richard Usher, former head of G11 FX trading-UK at an affiliate of Royal Bank of Scotland PLC; Rohan Ramchandani, former managing director and head of G10 FX spot trading at an affiliate of Citicorp; and, Christopher Ashton, former head of spot FX at an affiliate of Barclays PLC. The allegations have not been proven.

According to the indictment, the three traders, along with unnamed co-conspirators, conspired to fix prices and rig bids for the euro–U.S. dollar currency pair in phone calls and a private electronic chat room from December 2007 through January 2013.

“Their anticompetitive behaviour included colluding around the time of certain benchmark rates known as fixes, such as by coordinating their bidding/offering and trading to manipulate the price of the currency pair by the time of the fix or otherwise profit as a result of the fix price,” the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said in a statement. “The conspirators also coordinated their trading activities outside of fix times, such as by refraining from entering bids/offers or trading at certain times as a means of stabilizing or controlling price.”

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