CITIGROUP Inc., Royal Bank of Scotland Group and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are among five banks named in a class action lawsuit in Australia seeking damages for colluding on foreign exchange trading strategies.

UBS Group AG and Barclays Plc were also named in the suit lodged yesterday in the Federal Court by Maurice Blackburn Lawyers. The action claims the banks colluded to rig foreign exchange rates, boosting profits at the expense of Australian businesses and investors, the law firm said in a statement.

Spokespeople at Citi and JPMorgan in Sydney had no immediate comment on the suit. UBS didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment. A representative for Barclays in Hong Kong declined to comment. A representative for RBS in London didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry outside of office hours.

Citi, RBS, JPMorgan and Barclays were among five lenders that agreed to pay European Union fines totaling 1.07 billion euros (US$1.2 billion) earlier this month for colluding on foreign exchange strategies. UBS escaped a fine because it was the first to tell regulators about the collusion.

Traders allegedly used chat rooms bearing names such as “The Cartel,” “The Bandits’ Club,” and “The Mafia,” and communicated directly with each other to coordinate the manipulation of foreign exchange benchmark rates, control the pricing of spreads and to trigger client stop-loss orders and limit orders, Maurice Blackburn said.

The manipulation of benchmark foreign exchange rates was exposed in 2013, triggering regulatory probes in the United States, the U.K. and Switzerland. More than a dozen financial institutions have paid about US$11.8 billion in fines and penalties globally, with another US$2.3 billion spent to compensate customers and investors.

While the United States has won guilty pleas from JPMorgan, Citigroup, RBS and Barclays, three British traders in the group known as “The Cartel” were acquitted by a U.S. federal court last year of using a chatroom to coordinate trades and manipulate prices on the spot exchange rate for euros and U.S. dollars.

Maurice Blackburn’s suit claims Australian companies and investors, including importers, exporters, institutional investors and businesses with overseas operations, have been affected by the distortion of currency markets by the five banks. The action is on behalf of customers who bought or sold more than A$500,000 (US$347,000) in foreign currency between Jan. 1 2008 and Oct. 15, 2013, the law firm said. (SD-Agencies)