Cases
Typical questions. Public authorities.
Illustrative of the issues. Not a list of appointments. Current and former employers appear in some of the public files.
Typical questions
FX barriers
Chasing a one-touch
A one-touch digital that paid after a large print in a thin market. Whether that print was a good barrier under the confirmation — source, cut, continuous observation — and whether the tape was a market or a chase.
FX barriers
Knock-out of a reverse knock-out
Whether a print in the observation window was a good barrier under the confirmation: source, cut, continuous or discrete, and what a dealer who had run those books would have treated as a print.
FX barriers
Windowed and American barriers
A barrier live only in a window, or live continuously. Gap risk over a weekend or a data release, and whether a print outside the window was nevertheless treated as a knock.
FX barriers
Pin risk into a barrier
Delta-hedging into a barrier as spot pinned. Whether the hedge was managing a genuine knock risk, or a pattern of prints intended to force the barrier.
Options
TARF, accrual and target-redemption structures
A target-redemption or accrual forward sold as a hedge. What the payoff actually was, how it accrued, and whether early termination was the market value of the remaining accruals.
Options
Vanilla close-out off the wrong surface
A book of vanillas marked to a volatility surface that was not the surface of that day, that size or that delta. What a dealing room would have used to replace the trades.
Market abuse
From detection to closure
What happened between a suspicious pattern firing and the alert being closed. Whether anyone reconstructed the orders, or closed the story the platform told.
Market abuse
Independent review of a surveillance closure
A bank’s compliance team has closed an alert. The business wants an independent view from the actual orders and trades — not from the compliance write-up. Whether the activity is consistent with legitimate market behaviour or may indicate abuse.
Market abuse
Spoofing, layering and wash trading
Orders placed and cancelled in a pattern that may have been intended to move a thin FX price. Read from the order book, not from the alert text: size, life of the order, and whether a genuine strategy explains it.
Market abuse
Ramping a thin print
A cluster of aggressive prints into a quiet book, a fixing window or a barrier. Whether the tape is a genuine interest in that size, or an attempt to force a price through a level.
Market abuse
STOR or market observation
Whether the pattern met the threshold for a suspicious-transaction report or a market observation to the FCA. The evidence in the FX tape, not the narrative in the alert.
Market abuse
WM/R 4pm and other benchmark windows
Orders clustered in a WMR, ECB or EM fixing window. Methodology of the benchmark, the client instruction, and whether the tape is a genuine fixing or an attempt to move the print.
Spot FX
Last look on a spot order
Whether a rejection inside the last-look window was consistent with price-and-credit checking, or with holding the order long enough to trade against it.
Spot FX
Internalisation of a client order
Whether the desk filled from its own book at a genuine market, or used the order as a source of last-look flow. What a client of that standing would have been shown.
Spot FX
Stop-loss in a gap
A stop triggered through a gap after a data print or a weekend open. Whether the fill was the first available market, or a price taken from the far side of a book that had already been positioned.
Forwards
Broken-date forward points
A close-out on a date that is not a standard tenor. Interpolation of the curve, the points a dealer would have shown, and whether the quoted close was interpolation or a penalty.
Forwards
Historic-rate rollover
A corporate strip rolled at historic rates. Whether the points, the historic spot and the cash settlement were the market of the roll dates, or a structure that locked in a loss the client could not see.
Illustrative published cases
Public judgments, decisions and settlements in FX
Public decisions he can speak to. Not a list of appointments. These are the authorities a solicitor in this field already knows. They show the questions the practice is built to answer.
Vanilla and barrier options
United States v. Neil Phillips (Glen Point Capital / Morgan Stanley)
155 F.4th 102 (2d Cir. 2025); 690 F. Supp. 3d 268 (S.D.N.Y. 2023)
A one-touch digital barrier option on USD/ZAR, barrier 12.50, sold by Morgan Stanley. Glen Point’s co-CIO convicted of directing some $700 million of spot to touch the barrier and collect a $20 million payout. The Second Circuit affirmed: what a one-touch is, whether the print was a good barrier, and whether chasing it was a market or a fraud.
CFTC v. Glen Point Capital Advisors LP
No. 1:22-cv-10589 (S.D.N.Y., filed 15 December 2022)
The civil companion. Two one-touch binary options on USD/ZAR, combined payout $30 million, alleged to have been chased on 25 and 28 December 2017 in thin holiday liquidity. What the confirmation required as a barrier event, whether the print was a market, and the 1LOD/2LOD question of how a dealer records a one-touch that has just paid.
Deutsche Bank AG v Sebastian Holdings Inc
[2013] EWHC 3463 (Comm)
Close-out of an FX and currency-options book. Cooke J on the market meaning of a vanilla put or call, and whether knock-outs, double knock-outs, digitals and target-profit forwards were currency options or exotic transactions outside the trader’s authority. The same book: digital currency options, dual-range digitals, knock-out timing options and fade-in forwards.
Goldman Sachs International v Videocon Global Ltd
[2013] EWHC 2843 (Comm); [2016] EWCA Civ 130
Sums due on the termination of two vanilla currency option transactions (INR/USD and BRL/USD) under a 1992 ISDA. Whether the close-out followed the Master Agreement — quotes for spot, forwards and FX volatilities, and the options model used to turn them into a number.
KIKO knock-in knock-out currency options
2011Da53683 (en banc), Supreme Court of Korea, 26 September 2013
Knock-in knock-out USD/KRW options sold to Korean exporters. Whether the structure was an unfair contract, whether it was a hedge, and the bank’s duty to explain the knock-in, the knock-out and the unlimited downside.
Titan Steel Wheels Ltd v Royal Bank of Scotland plc
[2010] EWHC 211 (Comm)
A ratio / accrual FX product with a protected rate and a barrier rate. Whether the bank advised, whether a duty of care arose, and whether the close-out of a structured FX trade with a barrier was a market.
Close-out and ISDA
Anthracite Rated Investments (Jersey) Ltd v Lehman Brothers Finance SA
[2011] EWHC 1822 (Ch)
Automatic early termination of cash-settled put options under ISDA after Lehman’s default. How the Early Termination Cash Settlement Amount is to be determined — a dealing-room close-out, not a screen mid.
Lomas v JFB Firth Rixson Inc
[2012] EWCA Civ 419
Section 2(a)(iii) of the ISDA Master Agreement after an Event of Default. Whether payment obligations are suspended, and what a close-out under the 1992 and 2002 forms is meant to achieve.
Lehman Brothers Special Financing Inc v National Power Corporation
[2018] EWHC 487 (Comm)
Close-out of a USD/PHP forward currency swap under the 2002 ISDA. Whether the non-defaulting party’s Close-out Amount had to be objectively commercially reasonable, and whether a later, larger calculation could replace the first.
Conway v Plass (Re Argentex LLP)
[2025] EWHC 3125 (Ch)
Administrators of an FX and payments firm sought to close out a book of forwards and options before maturity because the book was net positive. The court refused: the contracts were for certainty of a future price, not an early unwind for the firm’s own account.
Market conduct
Final Notices — Citibank, HSBC, JPMorgan, RBS and UBS
12 November 2014
G10 spot FX: ineffective controls allowed traders to share confidential client information and to attempt to manipulate WM/Reuters and ECB fixes, including in collusion. Fines totalling £1.1 billion.
Final Notice — Barclays Bank Plc
19 May 2015
The same G10 spot failings at Barclays’ London FX business: information sharing, attempted manipulation of fixes, and attempts to trigger client stop-loss orders. Fine of £284 million.
Barclays — Last Look on BARX
18 November 2015
Automated last look used to reject client orders that would have been unprofitable after a milliseconds-long hold. When clients asked why fills were rejected, the bank cited technical issues. Additional $150 million penalty.
United States v. Mark Johnson
945 F.3d 606 (2d Cir. 2019)
HSBC’s global head of FX cash trading convicted of wire fraud over a $3.5 billion Cairn Energy sterling purchase. Pre-hedging and ramping into a fixing, and whether the client was told the truth about how the order would be worked.
United States v. Akshay Aiyer
33 F.4th 97 (2d Cir. 2022)
A JPMorgan CEEMEA FX trader convicted of conspiring to fix prices and rig bids in emerging-market currencies. Coordination of bids and offers, withholding of supply, and concealment over chatrooms and personal phones.
Competition
AT.40135 FOREX — Three Way Banana Split and Essex Express
Decisions of 16 May 2019
Article 101 infringements in G10 spot: multilateral private chatrooms, recurrent exchange of commercially sensitive information, and occasional coordination of trading, including around WMR and ECB fixes.
Michael O’Higgins FX Class Representative Ltd v Barclays Bank plc
[2022] CAT 16; [2023] EWCA Civ 876; [2025] UKSC 48
Follow-on collective proceedings from the Commission’s FOREX decisions. The Supreme Court, on 18 December 2025, restored the CAT’s refusal to certify on an opt-out basis.