Gold fingered

23 May 2014 By Dominic Elliott

The UK bank has been fined 26 mln stg for rigging gold reference prices. One of its traders legged over a client with a false sell order just a day after the bank’s Libor settlement. Barclays may be trying to change, but incidents like this show how far it has to go.

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Barclays on May 23 was fined 26 million pounds ($44 million) by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority for failing to prevent a rogue trader from manipulating gold reference prices.

Barclays’ lack of “policies, procedures, systems and training” meant staff were unable to spot or manage the “inherent conflict of interest” represented by the gold-fixing process, the FCA said.

The FCA said that Daniel Plunkett, a gold trader at Barclays, submitted a false sell order on June 28, 2012 to prevent the gold reference price from being fixed at a level which would have triggered a payment to his client of $3.9 million (2.3 million pounds).

The FCA has banned Plunkett for life from working in financial services and fined him 96,500 pounds.

Barclays Chief Executive Antony Jenkins said: “We very much regret the situation that led to this settlement. Barclays has undertaken a significant amount of work to enhance our systems and controls and is committed to the highest standards across all of our operations.”

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