insider trading - where is the line of propriety ? part 2

As a continuation of the cycle about illegal activities in the financial markets by investment banks and hedge funds, to present information that appeared today on Bloomberg. The most important of these:

Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Chase and other investment banks are considering limiting the ability of their traders to chat electronically with other banks amid a series of investigations of potential manipulation of the foreign exchange market.

No decisions have yet been made, but the banks are considering prohibiting traders from participating in group chats with employees of several rival banks at the same time.

If the restrictions are put into effect, traders are expected to still be able to speak to clients via chat or individual traders at another bank, just not in a group session featuring several banks at once :)

Barclays and Citigroup are also among the banks said to be considering limits.

Regulators in Britain, the United States, Switzerland and Hong Kong have all announced inquiries into possible manipulation of currency trading by traders in London and elsewhere in recent months.

The use of chat rooms by traders at multiple banks are among the areas being scrutinized by regulators in the foreign exchange investigations, in particular a group of traders nicknamed "the Cartel" and "the Bandits Club."

About a dozen traders have been placed on leave pending the outcomes of the currency trading investigations and the vast majority of the largest banks involved in the foreign exchange market have disclosed that they have been contacted by regulators, including Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Goldman Sachs.

None of the traders have been accused of wrongdoing and the investigations are at an early stage.

A lawsuit also was filed by a Massachusetts retirement system late last month in the United States against seven major banks, accusing them of manipulating foreign currency benchmarks.

Several of the banks have been reviewing the use of so-called mult-idealer chats for some time, in part because of concerns raised during a long-running investigation into the manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, a global benchmark interest rate.

Barclays, R.B.S., Swiss bank UBS, the Dutch lender Rabobank and British financial firm ICAP have paid more than $3 billion in the Libor scandal in total. (only)

regards,
oscarjp