Axiom Investment Advisors v. Barclays Bank
The lawsuit arose from "Last Look," a Barclays feature meant to deter traders from exploiting tiny delays, often just a few milliseconds, in the flow of information within the marketplace.
Instead, Plaintiffs claimed that Last Look was actually a "general filter" to weed out unprofitable trades, and gave vague or inaccurate responses to clients who asked why their trades were not being processed.
A U.S. lawsuit claimed that Barclays had rigged its foreign exchange trading system to reject client orders that would be unprofitable for the British bank.
Axiom, which is based in Manhattan claimed that this lead to "significant damages" for its foreign exchange counterparties, and amounted to breach of contract or fraud.
Barclays revised Last Look in September and October 2014 so that it would reject trades deemed "sufficiently unprofitable" for both customers and the bank, not just the bank, the New York regulator has said.
Barclays denied wrongdoing and agreed to provide information that may help Axiom pursue similar cases against other banks.
Barclays also agreed to pay $50 million to settle a U.S. lawsuit claiming it rigged its foreign exchange trading system to reject client orders that would be unprofitable, this came three months after Barclays agreed to pay $150 million and fire a senior electronic trading official to resolve similar claims by the New York State Department of Financial Services.