Credit Suisse Is Final Holdout In Forex Market Rigging Case Going To Trial

(Bloomberg) -- Credit Suisse Group AG is the last of 16 banks to face a US class-action lawsuit accusing it of conspiring with others to rig the foreign exchange market. 

Jury selection starts Tuesday in a case by a class of investors including pension funds that claims the bank used online chatrooms from late 2007 through 2013 to fix the spreads for currency pairs. The suit alleges this was done with traders from other international banking giants, including Citigroup Inc., UBS Group AG, Barclays Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co., HSBC Holdings Plc. and Deutsche Bank AG.

The trial comes at a tumultuous time for the Swiss lender, which is working to reassure investors about its capital strength and liquidity ahead of its second restructuring in as many years. The reorganization potentially involves deep cuts to the investment bank, which has racked up huge losses and played a front-line role in some of Credit Suisse’s biggest scandals.

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“We continue to believe that Credit Suisse has strong legal and factual defenses, and we look forward to establishing those at trial,” the bank said in a statement Monday. “It is important to note that this trial will not result in any monetary damages.”

The bank at one point faced potential liability of $19 billion, based off the tripling of damages that is standard in antitrust cases, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. But pretrial rulings recast the case so that jurors will instead decide only whether Credit Suisse participated in a conspiracy to fix prices. If the bank loses, customers can pursue damages individually instead of as a group.

Credit Suisse could eventually be on the hook for financial damage caused by the alleged conspiracy, to the extent it’s above the total of the other settlements. And a jury verdict against Credit Suisse would likely limit its defenses in a separate case filed by almost 1,300 investment firms and government entities that opted out of the class action.

Nine Years

It’s taken the rigging case nine years to reach a jury before US District Judge Lorna Schofield in Manhattan federal court. At the height of the alleged conspiracy, as much as $5.3 trillion per day was traded in the currency markets. 

By the end of 2017, the other banks had agreed to pay a total of $2.3 billion, one of the largest antitrust settlements in history. Despite participating in settlement talks, Credit Suisse wasn’t able to reach an agreement, leaving it as the last bank standing in the case. 

The lawsuit is the legacy of investigations from more than a decade ago into price-fixing in the currency market that have resulted in numerous settlements and prosecutions. 

Testimony will focus on a group of chatrooms where traders joked, traded news and rumors and discussed prices. Schofield said in a ruling before trial that hundreds of chat transcripts appear to show bankers colluding. Just four chat rooms connected Credit Suisse to the other 15 financial institutions, she said.

The plaintiffs claim Credit Suisse traders were involved in chat rooms discussing the US dollar, euro, British pound, Australian dollar, Swiss franc, Czech koruna, Israeli shekel, Polish zloty, and South African rand.

The jury will be told that 21 currency traders from various banks asserted their right against self-incrimination and refused to testify about their trading conduct. Each side has 16 hours to present its case in a trial that’s expected to take about two weeks. 

The bank has argued that discussing prices isn’t the same as illegal price-fixing and that many of the chatroom remarks were jokes. Credit Suisse contends that there was no overarching industry conspiracy and, in any case, it wasn’t itself part of one.

The case is In Re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation, 13-cv-7789, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

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