The bill over FX market manipulation keeps growing for big investment giants, with three of the UK’s biggest banks – Barclays PLC (LON:BARC), HSBC Holdings plc (LON:HSBA), and Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (LON:RBS), agreeing on Thursday to pay a total compensation of £600 million ($924 million) to victims of Forex manipulation in the US.
The decision became clear at a US federal court hearing yesterday.
Barclays will pay $384 million, HSBC will pay $285 million and RBS will is to pay $255 million. In addition, Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) is to pay $135 million and BNP Paribas SA (EPA:BNP) – $115 million.
The compensations will be paid to a number of claimants, including multinational companies, as well as hedge funds and pension funds, who alleged they had lost money as a result of the Forex market manipulation by the banks.
David Scott, managing partner of Scott+Scott, the firm who brought the action, was quoted by Sky News as saying:
“We look forward to presenting these momentous settlement agreements to the federal court for approval, but our work is far from done. Given our in-depth knowledge based on our success against the banks in the US, Scott+Scott is gearing up to bring the action to Europe.”
Amid the three UK banks, Barclays has so far incurred the biggest expenses related to market manipulation investigations, legal and regulatory action.