J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. agreed to settle a lawsuit over its role as one of a number of banks that allegedly rigged prices in the $5 trillion-a-day foreign-exchange market.
A group of institutional investors sued more than a dozen banks in Manhattan federal court in 2013, claiming top currency traders used closed-network chat rooms with names such as “The Cartel,” “The Bandits' Club” and “The Mafia” to share confidential client information and manipulate the benchmark WM/Reuters rates.
J.P. Morgan Chase and the investors told U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield in a letter Monday that they'd reached a settlement after “extensive negotiation and mediation” supervised by Kenneth R. Feinberg, the lawyer overseeing a compensation fund for victims of General Motors Co.'s faulty car ignition switches. Mr. Feinberg also managed funds for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and people harmed by the BP oil spill.
Details of the settlement, which must be approved by Ms. Schofield before it can take effect, weren't disclosed. A copy of the settlement will be filed with the court by the end of this month, according to the letter.
WM/Reuters rates are published hourly for 160 currencies and half-hourly for the 21 most-traded. They are the median of all trades in a minute-long period starting 30 seconds before the beginning of each half-hour. Rates for less-widely traded currencies are based on quotes during a two-minute window.
The data are collected and distributed by World Markets Co., a unit of State Street, and Thomson Reuters.
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