The discovery disputes in an FX benchmark rate fixing case currently proceeding at the New York Southern District Court continue.

The lawsuit targets a number of leading international banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, and UBS. In this case, a putative class of consumers and end-user businesses allege that they paid inflated Forex rates caused by an alleged conspiracy among the defendant banks to fix prices of FX benchmark rates in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. sec. 1 et seq.

On November 3, 2020, the plaintiffs in this case filed a Letter with the Court. The document, seen by FX News Group, makes it clear that the discovery dispute is far from over.

The plaintiffs claim that the defendant banks have not produced all documents given to the Department of Justice or received from the DOJ as required by the Court; nor have they produced actual notes and memoranda of any kind that refer to or reflect their communications between the Defendants and the DOJ.

Further, the plaintiffs claim that the defendants have not answered the specific interrogatories authorized by the Court, except to give re-creations and descriptions by their attorneys, rather than the actual facts.

In addition, the plaintiffs claim that they have been erroneously and prejudicially prohibited from taking any depositions in this case, whether it be depositions of the signatories of the guilty pleas presented in open court and attested to under oath; the depositions of potential 30(b)(6) witnesses with regard to the defendants’ unlawful conduct; the depositions of declarants who filed declarations in response to the Court’s orders; and the depositions of declarants who are the marketing representatives of the defendants.

Finally, the plaintiffs claim that the defendants have withheld important information that is of substantial importance to the motion for class certification with regard to both impact and the approximate estimation of damages.

Thus far, the plaintiffs have not had much success in terms of discovery. Last month, for instance, Judge Lorna G. Schofield quashed an attempt by the plaintiffs to force UBS AG to produce additional information about its communications with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding FX fines.