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US: British traders acquitted in LIBOR trial

By  |  October 28, 2018

A New York court has found three former London-based currency traders not guilty of manipulating benchmark foreign exchange rates.

Chris Ashton, Rohan Ramchandani and, Richard Usher, who worked at Barclays, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase respectively, were acquitted of all charges by a jury on October 26.

US prosecutors announced the charges in January 2017, and the three came to the United States to face them voluntarily.

Prosecutors claimed the three traders and others colluded to influence daily benchmark euro-dollar rates, known as “fixes,” in order to benefit their own trading positions. They said the scheme ran from 2007 to 2013.

The traders used a chatroom they dubbed “The Cartel” to exchange information, according to prosecutors.

Several others have been charged in the US probe, including Mark Johnson, a former head of foreign exchange cash trading at HSBC, who was sentenced to two years in prison in April after being found guilty by a jury, and former Barclays trader Jason Katz, who pleaded guilty and faces sentencing next year.

Full Content: Bloomberg

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