The Colorful Language At The Heart Of The Barclays Complaint - Here Is The City

A series of emails and instant messages between Barclays traders - peppered with colourful and obscene language - is at the heart of federal energy regulators' effort to impose record fines over a complex plan to manipulate California power markets.

Reuters reports that the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Wednesday proposed a total $470m fine on Barclays - the largest ever by the agency - based in part on communications by four traders on its West Coast power desk. The trading activity took place over two years from late 2006.

The team of four traders - veterans of power merchant Mirant, one of the companies that had been fined hundreds of millions of dollars after the California power scandal a decade ago - exchanged messages explaining how they would 'crap on' certain prices in one market to profit in another.

The traders are alleged to have manipulated power prices - driving up or down physical power prices to make money with their financial swap positions. That is alleged to have caused losses for rival power traders of $139m - and netted the bank gains of $34.9m.

Hit the link below to access the complete Reuters article:

In echo of Enron, Barclays traders plotted to rig power market

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