The Swiss banking giant UBS said today that it will plead guilty to fraud in the US for manipulating benchmark interest rates and pay USD 203 million in fines (182 million euros), but has escaped prosecution for foreign exchange manipulation.
The announcement comes as four other major banks are expected to fined billions of dollars for rigging the foreign exchange market in settlements with US and British regulators.
The US Department of Justice dropped charges against UBS into the currency rigging probe, and granted it conditional immunity for cooperating with the authorities, the bank said in a statement.
It will nevertheless pay a USD 342-million penalty (307 million euros) to the US Federal Reserve and change the way its foreign exchange system works, the bank said.
But a 2012 non-prosection agreement between the bank and the US Department of Justice over the LIBOR interest rate scandal was revoked by US officials, the bank added.
UBS said it had agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud for conduct in the LIBOR matter, pay a USD 203-million fine and accept a three-year term of probation.
UBS was fined 1.4 billion Swiss francs (USD 1.49 billion, 1.33 billion euros) in 2012 by Swiss authorities for its part in manipulating the benchmark rate.
The regulators verdicts on American giants JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, British banks Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland are expected to fall today.
