Canada’s Bank of Nova Scotia Under-fire for Manipulating Gold Prices

Canada’s Bank of Nova Scotia Under-fire for Manipulating Gold Prices
$BKSHF, $DB, $HBSC, $UBS, $GLD, $SLV

By Paul Ebeling : Canada’s Bank of Nova Scotia(OTCMKT:BKSHF) 1 of the 5 big banks said to have manipulated the Gold market, which is worth trillions of dollars in trading value per year, will have to turn over internal e-Mails and other correspondence spanning several years.

Daniel Brockett, the New York lawyer who is spearheading the US lawsuit, said that the banks will also have to produce all relevant chat room instant messages and any other written communication they exchanged, whatever the media.

The move comes as a US judge said last week that gold investors could go ahead with their lawsuit accusing four major banks of conspiring for a decade to fix prices and exploit distortions at the expense of investors in global markets for the precious Yellow metal.

Involved banks will also have to produce all relevant chat room instant messages and any other written communication they exchanged, whatever the media.

US District Court for the Southern District of New York Valerie Caproni reduced the class period to 6 years ending in Y 2012, and dismissed a claim of unjust enrichment.

Investors allege the banks conspired from Ys 2004 to 2013 to fix prices for Gold. They did not estimate the size of the banks’ bullion portfolios, but said the Gold derivatives market alone was as large as $650-B during the class period.

Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE:DB) settled related claims in April, and the investors are said to seek preliminary approval of such settlement.

The Bank of Nova Scotia, known as Scotiabank, is also facing another lawsuit in the Manhattan court in which investors have accused it of conspiring with Deutsche Bank, HSBC (NYSE:HBSC) and UBS (NYSE:UBS) to rig Silver prices through a daily meeting known as the Silver Fix.

UBS did not set the benchmarks, but was accused of conspiring to exploit the Silver Fix. The bank has previously disclosed that it launched an internal probe of its precious metals business in addition to its Forex investigation.

In Y 2014 and after 117 years of being set between banks, the daily price setting process for global Silver prices moved to an electronic platform run by GME Group and Thomson Reuters in London.