“A senior currency dealer at Lloyds Banking Group Plc (LLOY) shared details of a pending order by his firm with a trader at another company to the potential detriment of the bank, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.
“The Lloyds’s dealer, Martin Chantree, alerted the other trader on Jan. 31, 2013, that his desk had received instructions from the bank’s treasury department to swap more than 300 million pounds ($499 million) for dollars and that they would continue selling regardless of price movements, said two of the people, who asked not to be identified amid a probe into alleged rigging of the currency market. The recipient of the tip worked for oil company BP Plc (BP/), the other two people said.
“In the seven minutes between the communication at 10:53 a.m. and the time Lloyds began executing the order, the pound fell 16 basis points against the dollar, or 0.16 percentage point, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. As the U.K. currency tumbled, costing Lloyds an estimated $750,000, Chantree told colleagues that maybe he shouldn’t have shared the information, two of the people said.”
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Read full Bloomberg article here.