SEOUL, June 17 (Reuters) - South Korea's anti-trust agencychief said on Wednesday the agency is looking into whether theactivities of six global banks that were recently fined nearly$6 billion in a U.S. and European forex probe had affected SouthKorean companies.
Fair Trade Commission Chairman Jeong Jae-chan told aparliamentary hearing that the fact that the banks werepenalised in the United States doesn't mean there has been achargeable offence under South Korean law, and the FTC willreview what kind of effect the banks' actions had domestically.
Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, BarclaysPlc, UBS AG and Royal Bank of Scotland Plc were accused by U.S. and UK officials of cheatingclients to boost their own profits using invitation-only chatrooms and coded language to coordinate their trades.
All but UBS pleaded guilty to conspiring to manipulate theprice of U.S. dollars and euros exchanged in the FX spot market.UBS pleaded guilty to a different charge. Bank of America Corp was fined but avoided a guilty plea over the actions ofits traders in chatrooms. (Reporting by Changho Lee; Writing by Joyce Lee; Editing byTony Munroe and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Barclays (BARC)
