Source: The Economist | Author: Patrick Lane
Banks are in the frame for Britain’s latest collective-action claim
THE LAUGHING stopped long ago. Between 2007 and 2013, in online chatrooms called “Three Way Banana Split”, “Essex Express ’n the Jimmy” and other rib-ticklers, currency traders yapped about all sorts of things—including market tactics. The banter has cost their employers dear. Banks have been fined over $10bn for market-rigging by American and European regulators, including €1.1bn ($1.2bn) by the European Commission in May. An American class action cost 15 banks $2.3bn. But a lawyer’s work is never done. On July 29th Scott+Scott, an American law firm, filed a collective-action case at the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), an antitrust forum in London.
Cases like this are still a novelty in Britain, despite a theoretically helpful change in competition law in 2015. Collective claims may now be brought to the CAT on an “opt-out” basis, in which members of a specified class are included in the claim unless they choose not to be. If a monopolist rips off its customers, it may do a lot of harm in total, but the damage to each may be small. Given the cost of going to court, many may not bother suing. But the easier a collective-action case is to bring, the likelier they are to gain redress.
Original Article: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/08/01/the-currency-trading-scandal-continues-to-dog-the-banks