Goldman Sachs has been ordered to pay a fine of $120m by the US derivatives regulator over claims that its traders tried to rig a vital benchmark in the $300tn market for interest-rate swaps.
Yesterday’s order from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is the third relating to attempted manipulation of Isdafix, a key benchmark, following penalties for Citigroup ($250m) and Barclays ($115m) in May.
It drags Goldman in to a global rate-rigging probe that began with Libor and Euribor, two interbank lending rates, and moved on to foreign exchange. To date, the CFTC has wrung fines of more than $5.2bn in 18 actions against a host of Wall Street banks.