A US federal court said Thursday silver investors failed to show that JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), violated federal antitrust and commodities laws by having distorted silver prices, and so the case against the country’s largest bank should be dismissed.
The class-action from investors who traded COMEX silver futures and options contracts between 2007 and 2010, claimed the bank would amass huge short positions that market conditions did not justify, and make “fake” late-day trades when market volume was thin, reports Reuters.
The US bank is not the only one that has been under scrutiny as of late. Authorities around the globe, already investigating the manipulation of benchmarks from interest rates to foreign exchange, have also been studying the gold market for signs of wrongdoing.
Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest lender, said in January it would withdraw from the panels setting the gold and silver fixings. German financial markets regulator Bafin interviewed the bank’s employees as part of a probe into the potential manipulation of gold and silver prices. Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority is also scrutinizing how prices are calculated.