“A dozen large investors filed a joint lawsuit against 12 banks for allegedly conspiring to rig global foreign-exchange prices, according to a new consolidated complaint.

“The class-action lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York late Monday, was from a group of investors across the U.S. and Caribbean, including city and state pension plans.

“They accused the banks of communicating “with one another, including in chat rooms, via instant messages, and by emails, to carry out their conspiracy,” and for rigging foreign-exchange rates as far back as January 2003, the lawsuit said.

“The banks sued were Bank of America Corp., Barclays, BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., HSBC Holdings , J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and UBS AG.

“Representatives for these banks either declined to comment or couldn’t be reached.

“The private lawsuits follow an international regulatory probe into the manipulation of currency markets and constitute the latest headache for several major banks that have been scrutinized for their conduct relating to everything from global interest-rate benchmarks to credit derivatives trading.”

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