Deutsche Bank has suspended several currency traders for suspected attempts to rig rates, including some in New York. This comes amid investigations by the justice department, the Federal Reserve Board and other government agencies into whether the largest banks manipulated benchmark currency rates. Deutsche Bank signed a non-prosecution agreement in December 2010 with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan in which it promised to ‘commit no crimes whatsoever’ for the next two years. Under that deal, the bank paid about $550 million to resolve investigations into its sale of illegal tax shelters to wealthy Americans. The agreement said that if Deutsche Bank committed any crimes during the two-year period, it would be subject to prosecution for tax fraud and any other ‘federal criminal violation of which this office has knowledge, including perjury and obstruction of justice,’ even if the statute of limitations expired. As for the Deutsche Bank currency traders, it is possible that some of the conduct in question occurred from December 2010 to December 2012. The government investigations into foreign-exchange trading cover a lot of big banks.
