#$342

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Swiss Bank UBS To Pay $342 Million Currency Manipulation Fine, Plead Guilty On LIBOR

UBS UBS said on Wednesday morning it would pay a $ 342 million fine for its involvement in manipulating the foreign exchange market, averting criminal prosecution as a result of its cooperation in the multi-year probe. The Swiss banking giant, however, will plead guilty to one count of wire fraud for its role in manipulating interest rate benchmarks such as LIBOR, paying a $ 202 million fine, and tearing up a previously agreed 2012 deferred prosecution agreement with U.S. regulators.

The collective $ 545 million in fines and guilty plea will help UBS put to rest some of its largest legal issues in the United States and won’t have a financial impact given the bank’s exiting provisions for litigation.

UBS’s cooperation in the regulatory probes into foreign exchange market manipulation appears to have helped the bank avert new criminal charges for its trading activity. The Department of Justice will not fine UBS for its FX market activity and it will be given conditional immunity from prosecution by the regulator’s antitrust division.

The DoJ’s antitrust division is expected to announce settlements with banking conglomerates Barclays Barclays, Citigroup Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase and Royal Bank of Scotland Royal Bank of Scotland, which will lead to billions of dollars in collective fines and criminal guilty pleas on antitrust.

About its avoidance of a FX guilty plea, UBS said in a Wednesday statement, “In resolving the FX matter with the DOJ, UBS received conditional immunity from prosecution for Euro/USD collusion from the Antitrust Division, which will also not prosecute UBS for any other FX conduct. This immunity reflects UBS’s role as the firm that first reported potential misconduct to the DOJ, and the full cooperation provided to the DOJ and other authorities throughout the world.”

UBS’s guilty plea into LIBOR trading relates to conduct U.S. and U.K. regulators uncovered in 2012, which caused the firm’s Japanese subsidiary to plead guilty to criminal charges. UBS will pay $ 203 million as part of its LIBOR guilty plea and accept a three-year probation. The bank will also pay the Federal Reserve and Connecticut Department of Banking a total of $ 342 million for “unsafe and unsound business practices” related to its FX market activity.

“The conduct of a small number of employees was unacceptable and we have taken appropriate disciplinary actions,” UBS chairman Axel Weber and CEO Sergio Ermotti said in a joint statement.