(Adds details of fines, charges, Bank of America settlement.)
By Karen Freifeld
NEW YORK, May 20 (Reuters) - Five of the world's largestbanks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc, were fined roughly $5.7 billion, and four of them pleadedguilty to U.S. criminal charges over manipulation of foreignexchange rates, authorities said on Wednesday.
A fifth bank, UBS AG , will plead guilty torigging benchmark interest rates, the U.S. Justice Departmentsaid.
U.S. banks JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup will pay $550million and $925 million in criminal fines, respectively, aspart of their guilty pleas.
British banks Barclays Plc will pay $650 million incriminal penalties and Royal Bank of Scotland Plc $395million. Each will plead guilty to one felony count ofconspiring to fix prices and rig bids for U.S. dollars and eurosin the foreign exchange spot market.
Euro dollar traders at four of the banks describedthemselves as members of "The Cartel" and used an electronicchat room and coded language to manipulate exchange rates toincrease profits, the Justice Department said.
The $5.7 billion total includes $1.6 billion in finesseparately imposed by the U.S. Federal Reserve on the fivebanks.
Separately, the Fed fined Bank of America Corp $205million for unsound practices in foreign exchange.
Barclays also will pay an additional $1.3 billion to settlewith the New York State Department of Financial Services, theU.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the UK's FinancialConduct Authority, authorities said.
As part of the agreement, Barclays will fire eight bankemployees involved with rigging foreign exchange rates, the NewYork regulator said.
In addition, Barclays will pay a $60 million criminalpenalty for violating an earlier non-prosecution agreement withthe Justice Department to resolve a probe of the manipulation ofthe London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and other benchmarkinterest rates.
Swiss-based UBS will separately plead guilty to manipulatingLibor and other benchmark interest rates. It will also pay a$203 million criminal penalty for breaching a 2012non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department overLibor.
The fines announced on Wednesday follow agreements inNovember with many of the same banks over currency trading andbring total penalties to nearly $9 billion, the JusticeDepartment said. (Additional reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir in Washington,Editing by Soyoung Kim and Jeffrey Benkoe)
Barclays (BARC)