Loading ...Switzerland’s regulator found “serious misconduct” by UBS AG (UBSN)employees in precious metals trading, particularly with silver, as part of its review of the bank’s foreign-exchange business.
Electronic chats played a “key” role in the improper conduct in foreign exchange and precious metals trading, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, or Finma, said in a statement today. It found front running, when traders profit from advance knowledge about a transaction expected to influence prices, over client orders for silver.
The Swiss regulator and those in the U.S. and U.K. ordered UBS and four other banks to pay about $3.3 billion to settle a probe into the rigging of foreign-exchange rates. Precious metals fixings, price-setting rituals dating back a century for gold and silver, were overhauled this year as scrutiny increased on how market benchmarks are set. Barclays Plc was fined in May after a trader sought to influence the gold fix in 2012. read more