Report: Justice, Holder eye new charges against major banks

Roughly a dozen major banks are reportedly facing fresh probes from the Justice Department, and individual traders could face charges.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that government investigators were examining a “dozen or so banks,” including major Wall Street institutions like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, over allegations that traders manipulated currency exchanges and benchmark interest rates for their own profit.

{mosads}The fresh push comes as Attorney General Eric Holder prepares to step down. Holder has frequently been criticized by some lawmakers for taking too soft and slow an approach to punishing financial wrongdoers, particularly after the financial crisis.

According to the Times, the Justice Department is looking to obtain guilty pleas from several banks and also to indict several traders for their roles in the manipulation. However, it does not appear that top bank executives, long a target for Wall Street critics in Congress, are under the microscope in these investigations. The Times based its report on conversations with “more than a dozen” lawyers speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Several banks have already struck settlements with government regulators over charges that employees manipulated rates used across the market to pad their own profits. In 2012, the Swiss bank UBS agreed to pay U.S. and British regulators $1.5 billion to settle charges, and Barclays and RBS, among others, have also entered into similar settlements.

However, those cases could be reopened under the current probe, if government investigators argue fresh findings of manipulation violate the previously struck settlements. Other banks, such as Deutsche Bank, remain under investigation for potential manipulation.

While Holder critics have argued the Justice Department has been too soft on Wall Street under his watch, federal prosecutors have managed to impose some penalties on a host of financial institutions. Several large banks have agreed to civil settlements where they pay penalties running into the billions of dollars, and the Justice Department has obtained a handful of guilty pleas from banks for helping evade sanctions as well as taxes.

And even as those settlements have been announced, Justice Department officials have emphasized that criminal probes remain ongoing.