RBC and Toronto-Dominion Face Allegations of Malpractice in Foreign Exchange Trading

10 September 2019: Canada’s Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has issued a notice of hearing to Royal Bank of Canada in a bid to settle charges of forex trading malpractice. 

The charges, which have also been issued to Toronto-Dominion Bank, allege that traders took advantage of confidential customer information to gain an advantage in foreign exchange transactions. The OSC has proposed that the banks failed to implement sufficient controls surrounding FX trading in the period between 2011 and 2013. This lack of controls allowed inappropriate sharing of confidential client information, with OSC identifying hundreds of prohibited disclosures made during the three year period.

Commenting on the allegations, a spokesperson for RBC said: 

“The conduct covered by the allegations occurred many years ago, and we have taken a number of steps since that time to enhance our controls…We will discipline, up to and including termination, anyone on our platform who does not comply with our high standards of behaviour and the applicable laws and regulations in any jurisdiction.”