Deutsche Bank Turns Over Proof of Metals Price Rigging
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Some say there is honor among thieves. Perhaps, but apparently not among the banking class of criminals when they are under serious legal and regulatory pressure.
German behemoth Deutsche Bank agreed last spring to assist plaintiffs and regulators by ratting out their co-conspirator banks in a wide-ranging scheme to rig prices and cheat clients.
They cut a deal to avoid even larger monetary damages and criminal prosecution. Executives there agreed to pay nearly $100 million to settle their legal troubles and share information. In return the bank gets to deny wrongdoing and keep its license to trade in markets. The other alleged cheaters, including the Bank of Nova Scotia, UBS, Barclays, HSBC, Fortis, Standard Chartered, and Bank of America, may not get off as easy.
More details are now emerging as to exactly what kind of evidence Deutsche provided, and it is indeed damning. Plaintiffs in a class action suit looked it over and just filed an amended complaint with broader allegations of wrongdoing implicating more banks. The revised complaint describes what they found in the Deutsche materials this way:
Plaintiffs incorporate factual allegations based on the more than 350,000 pages of documents and 75 audio tapes that Deutsche Bank produced as part of the cooperation provisions of its Settlement Agreement with Plaintiffs (collectively, the “DB Cooperation Materials”). The DB Cooperation Materials provide direct, “smoking gun” evidence of a conspiracy among the Fixing Members and several other silver market makers, including at least UBS, Barclays, Standard Chartered, Fortis, and Merrill Lynch, to illegally manipulate the price of silver and silver financial instruments at artificial, anti-competitive levels through multiple means.
“Smoking gun” appears to be an apt description. Here is an example of a chat between a trader at Deutsche Bank and one at HSBC:
Deutsche Bank [Trader-Submitter A]: I got the fix in 3 minutes
HSBC [Trader A]: I’m bearish
Deutsche Bank [Trader-Submitter A]: Hahahaha
HSBC [Trader A]: Massively… Really wanna sell sil * * *
HSBC [Trader A]: Let’s go and smash it together
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