Swiss financial market regulator Finma issued an industry ban against six former UBS employees, while clearing four others. One is still under investigation.
Finma started its investigation of 11 UBS traders and managers in the foreign exchange and precious metals business in November 2014 on suspicion of manipulation and other conduct breaching its regulations. The regulator now issued bans of four and five years against the heads of the global foreign exchange trading and global foreign exchange spot trading, prohibiting the two from holding senior management positions in the industry, Finma said in a statement today.
Four foreign exchange and precious metals traders received industry bans of at least one year. One further employee is still under investigation, while four were cleared in August 2015, escaping with a reprimand from Finma. None of the involved bankers is still at UBS, the regulator said.
Failure to Control Traders
«The proceedings conducted by Finma established that those responsible for the management of foreign exchange trading tolerated, and at times encouraged, behavior which was improper and against the interests of clients,» the regulator said today.
The managers were aware of the risks the traders took, but failed to implement adequate controls and to monitor compliance with internal and external rules. «Traders shared confidential client information, sometimes revealing the identity of clients to third parties, deliberately triggered stop-loss orders and engaged in front running. They also repeatedly attempted to manipulate foreign exchange benchmarks,» the regulator statement concluded.
