After talks with well-connected lawyers for Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland, senior Justice Department officials in Washington last year overruled career prosecutors who had been investigating wrongdoing that cost investors billions.
The FBI is looking into whether Italy’s largest bank was also hacked; about 4.5 million people have already inquired about getting a cash settlement with the credit bureau.
Barclays will stop providing future financing to companies that manage private prisons and immigration holding facilities, joining other major lenders in shunning the industry.
It’s the latest development in a foreign-exchange-related case that has triggered regulatory probes around the world, and it's one of the first cases to be brought under 2015 U.K. legislation that paves the way for U.S.-style class actions.
Royal Bank of Scotland and JPMorgan Chase were also among the five banks that agreed to pay fines for colluding on foreign-exchange trading strategies.
More U.S. consumers are defaulting on their credit cards, but banks may be holding onto the riskiest loans instead of passing them off to investors, according to a report from Barclays.
