Antitrust authorities of the European Union have imposed a fine totaling 1.07 billion euros ($1.2 billion) on some of the major banks of the region which are Barclays, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, MUFG and Royal Bank of Scotland. The charge against the bank is that they had taken part in the rigging of the spot foreign exchange market and rates for 11 foreign currencies.

Because it had played the role of whistle blower and had alerted the European Commission about the existence of two cartels, the EU body decided not to impose a 285 million euro fine on the Swiss bank UBS. Charges of banks rigging the key benchmarks over the last decade have been the cause for the financial industry being imposed with fines amounting to billion euros.

“Companies and people depend on banks to exchange money to carry out transactions in foreign countries. Foreign exchange spot trading activities are one of the largest markets in the world, worth billions of euros every day,” EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a press release Thursday.

“Today we have fined Barclays, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and MUFG Bank and these cartel decisions send a clear message that the Commission will not tolerate collusive behavior in any sector of the financial markets. The behavior of these banks undermined the integrity of the sector at the expense of the European economy and consumers,” Vestager added.

The fine by the EU came after an investigation of the allegations for a period of six years. The EU investigations found that there were some individual traders belonging to various banks who were in charge of forex trading had been making use of a number of online professional chat rooms for the exchange of sensitive information and trading plans. Forex trading is a form of trading that is conducted on an intra-day basis.

Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS are also involved in a similar investigation over similar charges in the United States and is being conducted by the regulators of that country. The accused banks have entered related guilty pleas and they have been fined a total of more than $2.8 billion combined.

In the US, online professional chat rooms with names such as “The Cartel,” “The Mafia” and “The Bandits’ Club,” were allegedly used by the some individuals in the banks for rigging of the market, said U.S. regulators. The bank individuals also used tactics with such names as “front running,” “banging the close,” “painting the screen” and “taking out the filth.”

The news saw shares of UBS rising while the shares of Barclays and RBS fell down. At the same time, stock price of J.P. Morgan and Citigroup were down slightly in pre-market trading.

(Adapted from BusinessFast.co.uk)