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(Adds confirmation of interviews from source)
By Aruna Viswanatha
NEW YORK, April 27 (Reuters) - Criminal prosecutors from theU.S. Department of Justice have gone to London to interviewindividuals in connection with an investigation into traders'alleged rigging of foreign exchange rates, a person familiarwith the matter said.
The DOJ has conducted joint interviews of UK-based currencytraders with the United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority inLondon, the person said.
The London interviews highlight the extent to which U.S. andUK authorities are cooperating in a sprawling investigation intopotential manipulation in the foreign exchange market, afterclashing in conducting probes into the rigging of the Liborbenchmark interest rate.
The FCA sought in 2012 to interview traders ahead of DOJ inways that had the potential to complicate U.S. criminalinvestigations.
While the FCA could compel people to answer its questionsand not remain silent, the U.S. Constitution allows individualsto remain silent under oath in order to avoidself-incrimination.
Any evidenced gathered under compelled conditions could bedifficult for U.S. authorities to use, former prosecutors havesaid.
The recent joint interviews on the forex probe suggest thetwo authorities are now working in tandem.
After extracting billions in fines from global banks forrigging Libor, the average rate at which a panel of banksexpects to borrow money, authorities have turned to otherbenchmarks, including those that undergird the $5.3trillion-a-day currency market, to investigate whether they areopen to similar kinds of skewing.
Banks including Barclays, UBS AG,, RoyalBank of Scotland, and now Rabobank have paidout billions in fines, and have agreed to turn over allinformation that the Justice Department asks of them for atleast two years as part of their settlements, Mythili Raman, theacting head of the department's criminal division, said inOctober after the forex probe was announced.
In February Raman told Reuters the Justice Department hadworked hard to improve its relationships with UK authorities.
A spokesperson for the DOJ was unavailable for comment onSunday. (Reporting by Aruna Viswanatha; additional reporting by AnnaSussman; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)
