23/05/2014

Barclays Fined £26m Over Gold Price Fixing

Barclays Bank has been fined over £26m by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) after an employee was discovered attempting to manipulate the price of gold.

The FCA said the bank failed to adequately manage conflicts of interest between itself and customers between 2004 and 2013.

Barclays Bank has previously been fined over Libor rate-setting and has now agreed to settle the case at an early stage, saving itself a 30% additional penalty.

Barclays is one of four banks, including Scotiabank, Societe Generale and HSBC, that sets the price of the metal twice a day, in US dollars, on the London Gold Exchange and in Paris and Zurich.

The FCA said: "On 28 June 2012, former Barclays trader Daniel James Plunkett exploited the weaknesses in Barclays' systems and controls to seek to influence that day's 3pm setting of the gold price and thereby profited at a customer's expense. As a result of Plunkett’s actions, Barclays was not obligated to make a $3.9m (£2.3m) payment to its customer, although it later compensated the customer in full."

The FCA also fined the trader, Daniel James Plunkett, £96,500 and banned him from performing any function in relation to any regulated activity.

(CVS/IT)

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