Twelve large banks have been sued in a consolidated antitrust lawsuit by investors who claim they conspired to rig prices in the roughly $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market. Investors, including the city of Philadelphia and a variety of pension funds and hedge funds, accused the banks of conspiring since January 2003 in chat room discussions, instant messages and by email to manipulate the WM/Reuters Closing Spot Rates. The private litigation was filed on Monday night in U.S. District Court in Manhattan; it combines several lawsuits that have been filed since November. Defendants are Bank of America Corp, Barclays Plc, BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc, Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and UBS AG. The case comes amid civil and criminal probes worldwide into whether banks rigged prices to boost profit at the expense of customers and investors. The Financial
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