THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

This latest one that is being punished by a "humongous" fine of $4.25 Billion for conspiring to manipulate the currency exchanges. The huge fine for manipulating a $5 Trillion+ market will be split by 5 of the usual suspects.

On Wednesday, the Financial Conduct Authority of Britain said it had reached a so-called global settlement worth a combined 1.1 billion pounds, or more than $1.7 billion, with five companies: the Swiss bank UBS; the British lenders HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland; and the American banks JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. The settlement is large by European standards, and it is a record for the British financial authority.

In a surprise move, the authority said at a news conference on Wednesday that the British bank Barclays was the only bank that remained under investigation in its inquiry and would be the only bank likely to face a penalty by the regulator going forward.

Separately on Wednesday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the United States imposed $1.4 billion in penalties against Citigroup, HSBC, JPMorgan, R.B.S. and UBS.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined Citigroup, JPMorgan and Bank of America a combined $950 million for what it said were “unsafe and unsound practices” in their currency trading businesses. And regulators in Switzerland penalized UBS about $138 million.

From January 2008 to October 2013, the British financial authority said, the banks allowed traders in the foreign exchange markets to put the interests of their banks ahead of those of their clients, of other market participants and of the wider British financial system. That included sharing confidential client information and attempts to manipulate currency rates by colluding with traders at other companies.

The British and American regulators released documents detailing conversations among traders in electronic chat rooms that were filled with jargon, incorrect spelling, bad language and typos. One document showed a conversation among three traders — at JPMorgan, Citibank and UBS — discussing whether to let a fourth into their group. “Will he tell rest of desk stuff or god forbin his nyk’” asked one trader, referring to the New York office when he said he was concerned about whether the new participant could be trusted.

As usual no one went to peison or was barred or suspended from trading for these activities.