A former Barclays Bank employee would be barred for life from banking industry employment and assessed a nearly half-million-dollar fine for using electronic chat rooms to influence foreign exchange pricing benchmarks under a notice filed by federal regulators Friday.
Peter Little, the former head of the foreign exchange (FX) spot desk for Barclays Bank PLC in New York, faces the lifetime ban and a $487,500 civil money penalty under a notice filed by the Federal Reserve.
According to the notice, “Little is alleged to have engaged in unsafe and unsound practices by using electronic chat rooms to coordinate with traders at competitor banks to influence FX pricing benchmarks and by engaging in manipulative trading.” The notice adds that Little is alleged to have failed to adequately supervise subordinate traders at Barclays who coordinated with and disclosed confidential information to competitors on Little’s behalf.
The Fed said its action against Little follows its actions prohibiting former Barclays foreign exchange traders Christopher Ashton and Michael Weston from employment in the banking industry. The Fed in May 2015 took enforcement action against Barclays for unsafe and unsound practices in its FX market practices. That action required Barclays to pay a $342 million civil money penalty and to engage in extensive remediation, the Fed pointed out.