Federal Reserve Board seeks to fine and bar Barclays banker over FX manipulation
The Federal Reserve Board is looking to fine and permanently bar former Barclays employee Peter Little over manipulation in the currency market. Little, the former head of Barclays' foreign exchange spot trading desk in New York, is "alleged to have engaged in unsafe and unsound practices by using electronic chat rooms to coordinate with traders and competitor banks to influence FX pricing benchmarks," the Fed said in a statement on Friday. Little is also being accused of failing to supervise his subordinates. The Fed is seeking to fine him $487,500 and bar him from working in the banking industry. This is the third time the central bank's board of governors has taken action against Barclays or its employees, following the barring of former FX traders Christopher Ashton and Michael Weston. The move to censure Little comes after domestic and U.K. regulators have slapped foreign-exchange traders at prominent banks with hefty fines over the past several years for allegedly using chat rooms to manipulate currency closing prices, or fixes, for everything from the U.S. dollar to the Japanese yen .
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.