NY Court agrees with DOJ on deposition matters in Forex benchmark rate manipulation case

Maria Nikolova

Judge Lorna G. Schofield has agreed with the DOJ request to extend the discovery stay in the case targeting banks like HSBC, Citi and JPMorgan.

Another intervention by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in a Forex benchmark rates fixing case has gotten the nod of approval of the New York Southern District Court. Judge Lorna G. Schofield has granted the DOJ application from earlier in March for a three-month extension of the limited discovery stay in the case captioned Nypl v. JP Morgan Chase & Co. et al (1:15-cv-09300).

In particular, the DOJ had requested that depositions and interviews of current and former employees of seven defendant banks – Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, RBS, UBS, BNP Paribas, and HSBC – are stayed. Individuals who worked for any of the above-referenced seven banks only prior to the beginning of the class period (December 2007) still may be deposed.

The plaintiffs had argued against the proposed stay, noting that they have no reason, and are unaware of any reason, how the depositions would interfere, in any way, in the proceedings by the Department of Justice, and that delays of depositions always carry with them the prospects of witnesses either changing positions, memory loss, and/or availability. The Judge, however, overruled their objections.

Interestingly, in its Memo Endorsement, the Judge referred to “reasons … in the ex parte affidavit emailed to the Court on March 12, 2018”. This affidavit has not been made public.

In line with the DOJ’s request, the discovery stay in the case is extended until June 8, 2018.

Let’s recall that the plaintiffs had previously indicated their intentions to take depositions from:

  • Stuart Alderoty, Esq., former Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel, HSBC Bank USA, N.A.;
  • Marc Moses, Executive Director and Group Chief Risk Officer, HSBC Holdings plc;
  • James Fuqua, Esq., General Counsel, UBS Securities LLC, Investment Bank Americas;
  • Axel Weber, Chairman of the Board of Directors, UBS Group AG;
  • Matthew Fitzwater, Esq., Global Head of Litigation, Investigations, and Enforcement, Barclays PLC;
  • Rohan Weerasinghe, Esq., General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Citigroup, Inc.;
  • Stephen Cutler, Esq., former General Counsel and current Vice Chairman, JPMorgan Chase & Co.;
  • James Esposito, Esq., Global General Counsel, NatWest Markets and General Counsel (Americas), Royal Bank of Scotland.

This action is brought on behalf of a putative class of consumers and end-user businesses alleging that they paid inflated foreign currency exchange rates caused by an alleged conspiracy among the defendant banks to fix prices of FX benchmark rates in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. sec. 1 et seq.

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