South Africa’s Competition Tribunal on Wednesday confirmed a $5.25 million settlement with Citibank for its role in rigging rand currency trading, making the US bank the first among more than dozen banks named in a probe.
The Commission, which investigates cases before referring them to the Tribunal for adjudication, announced in February it had found more than a dozen local and foreign banks colluded to coordinate trading the rand and the US dollar. It then recommended fines amounting to 10 percent of the banks’ South African revenues in a scandal that has piled political pressure on local banks.
The Tribunal said Citibank admitted to manipulating the price of bids and offers through agreements to refrain from trading, and created fictitious bids and offers. “Citibank additionally admitted to fixing bids, offers and bid-offer spreads in relation to spot trades on rand currency pairs through co-ordination/alignment of the bids, offers, and bid-offer spreads quoted to customers,” it said in a statement.
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