By Jody Godoy
(Reuters) – An attorney for investors suing Credit Suisse Group AG told a jury in U.S. court on Tuesday that chats between traders prove the world’s largest banks colluded to fix prices in the foreign exchange market between 2007 and 2013.
Credit Suisse is the last bank defendant remaining in the class action that began in 2013, after 15 others reached $2.31 billion of settlements. Investors have accused Credit Suisse traders of sharing nonpublic pricing information with traders at other banks, including in chat rooms with names such as “Yen Cartel.”
“Trust the chats, the chats will tell you what happened when,” Christopher Burke said during opening statements in Manhattan federal court.
The trial is expected to take around two weeks. The jury will decide whether there was a conspiracy to rig the foreign currency market, and whether Credit Suisse was involved in one or more schemes.
The bank’s attorney, Edward Moss, said in his opening statement that separate chats between handfuls of traders do not prove Credit Suisse engaged in a conspiracy to rig the world’s largest financial market.
“There were people in this industry that did things they were not supposed to do, but they didn’t do what the plaintiffs allege,” he said.
The earlier settlements followed regulatory probes that culminated in more than $10 billion of fines for several banks, and the convictions or indictments of some traders.
Some investors including BlackRock Inc and Allianz SE’s Pimco chose to “opt out” of the investor litigation. Investors typically do that when they hope to recover more by suing on their own.
The case is In Re Foreign Exchange Benchmark Rates Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 13-07789.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Matthew Lewis)
