Enforcement action, begun in 2015 involving FX trading, terminated for Barclays

A five-year enforcement action involving violations of rules governing foreign exchange (FX) trading at Barclays Bank PLC of London and New York – which forced the bank to pay a multi-million-dollar fine and resulted in the banishment for life from banking for at least three of its employees – has been terminated, the Federal Reserve said Friday.

The action was instituted in 2015. The bank that year was slapped with a $342 million civil money penalty and what the Fed termed “extensive remediation” over unsafe and unsound practices in its FX market practices.

Additionally, at least three FX traders for the bank in New York were prohibited from the banking industry as a result of the enforcement action. In one instance, the former head of the FX spot desk for Barclays in New York allegedly engaged in unsafe and unsound practices by using electronic chat rooms to coordinate with traders at competitor banks to influence FX pricing benchmarks and by engaging in manipulative trading, according to the central bank.

The Fed said in 2018, when it banished spot desk head Peter Little, that he allegedly failed to adequately supervise subordinate traders at Barclays who coordinated with and disclosed confidential information to competitors on Little’s behalf.

2015 Barclays Cease and Desist Order, dated May 20, 2015