Plaintiffs in FX benchmark fixing case seek NY Court order to proceed with top banks’ depositions
The plaintiffs are seeking depositions from those very persons who “acknowledged a vast price-fixing scheme covering many years and affecting billions of dollars stolen from unsuspecting victims”.
Plaintiffs in a Forex benchmark fixing case have turned to the Honorable Lorna G. Schofield of the New York Southern District Court, asking her to allow them to proceed with taking depositions from a number of senior executives and legal counsel at top banks, including HSBC, RBS, JPM, UBS, Barclays, and Citi.
The Plaintiffs’ Letter, seen by FinanceFeeds, was filed in response to an earlier Letter written by a counsel for Barclays PLC (LON:BARC), writing on behalf of all defendants in the case, captioned Nypl v. JP Morgan Chase & Co. et al (1:15-cv-09300). In that Letter, the Defendants opposed plans by the plaintiffs’ 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.
The banks argue that the plaintiffs are seeking the noticed depositions not because of any unique knowledge specific to the putative deponents, but because they believe that those individuals will be able to identify easily for Plaintiffs specifically “what documents” the defendants relied upon in settling regulatory charges and “which documents show the violation which [Defendants] have pled guilty to.”
Also, the banks assert that the plaintiffs’ strategy seeks to elicit improper privileged information from these apex deponents.
In their reply, the plaintiffs note that it is not up to the defendants to decide how the plaintiffs should proceed with regard to evidence. Also, it is not the obligation of the plaintiffs to disclose to the defendants the questions the plaintiffs may ask.
Finally, the plaintiffs argue that there is no order by this court that would “prohibit the taking of depositions of those very persons who signed the criminal Plea Agreements and Deferred Prosecution Agreement in which they acknowledged a vast price-fixing scheme covering many years and affecting billions of dollars stolen from unsuspecting victims”.
Judge Schofield has scheduled a telephone conference for December 6, 2017, at 3:30 p.m. to discuss the deposition notices.
