The sentence was decrease than that sought by prosecutors
A former JPMorgan Chase & Co. dealer was sentenced to eight months in jail for his position in a foreign-exchange bid-rigging scheme, the second particular person convicted at trial in a sweeping authorities crackdown.
Akshay Aiyer was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Decide John Koeltl in Manhattan. Aiyer was discovered responsible final November of conspiring with merchants at different banks in chat rooms, on phone calls and at social gatherings to coordinate bids and repair costs of African, European and Center Japanese currencies whereas main prospects to consider they had been competing with one another.
The sentence was decrease than that sought by prosecutors and fewer than the 2 years given to the primary particular person charged within the crackdown, Mark Johnson, a former head of overseas alternate at HSBC Holdings Plc. Along with the jail time period, Aiyer was additionally sentenced to 2 years of supervised launch and a $150,000 nice.
The U.S. has gone after greater than half a dozen merchants, and banks around the globe have paid greater than $10 billion in penalties for misconduct within the forex markets because the crackdown started. Citigroup Inc., Barclays Plc, Royal Financial institution of Scotland Group Plc and JPMorgan Chase all pleaded responsible in 2015 to rigging forex alternate charges and agreed to pay about $2.5 billion to the Justice Division as a part of a $5.eight billion settlement with regulators.
Aiyer’s conviction was a victory for the federal government, which has a blended document of prosecuting foreign-exchange merchants.
Johnson was convicted in 2017 of front-running a $3.5 billion shopper order, however a U.Ok. courtroom declined to extradite Johnson’s underling, Stuart Scott, and three British merchants accused of comparable conduct had been acquitted by a jury in New York in 2018. U.Ok. investigators dropped a prison probe into particular person merchants after figuring out they did not have sufficient proof.
Aiyer, a local of India who labored at JPMorgan from 2006 till he was fired in 2015, had requested the choose to condemn him to a time period of probation with a interval of house confinement. His attorneys argued that he had no prison historical past and was convicted of a criminal offense in reference to conduct that was “widespread within the foreign-exchange trade.”
Prosecutors had requested the choose to order Aiyer to spend as many as 46 months behind bars as advisable by federal sentencing tips, saying a jail time period was essential to “mirror his guilt of a critical crime.” They argued that he and his co-conspirators labored to rig the market “with a view to line their very own pockets, with no regard for the victims they left of their wake,” and that Aiyer had proven no regret for his conduct.
“They rigged bids to prospects and coordinated their buying and selling within the interdealer market to push value of their favor, and to the drawback of others out there,” prosecutors stated in a sentencing memorandum. “Every time they applied their settlement, they positioned themselves to steal from pension funds, faculty financial savings funds, foundations, mutual funds and retirement accounts.”
At his sentencing, Aiyer requested the choose to point out compassion, saying he has suffered loads during the last six years and that the expertise has been the worst of his life. “I’ve misplaced my job, I’ve ruined my profession,” he stated.
His legal professional, Martin Klotz, stated prosecutors overstated the affect of his buying and selling exercise at practically $277 million, saying Aiyer himself possible gained solely hundreds of {dollars} and any income to JPMorgan most likely coming in beneath $1 million.
Prosecutors relied on testimony from two alleged conspirators, former Citigroup dealer Christopher Cummins and ex-Barclays banker Jason Katz, who pleaded responsible and testified for the federal government. Protection attorneys argued that Cummins and Katz had been colluding with different merchants for years earlier than they even met Aiyer and had been merely attempting to keep away from jail.
The case is U.S. v. Aiyer, 18-cr-333, U.S. District Court docket, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
