U.S. Probes Treasuries Niche That Investors Claim Is Rigged by Big Banks
- Prosecutors said to ask banks about `when-issued' securities
- Opaque market is marked by collusion, recent suits allege
U.S. Officials Are Investigating Treasuries Market
U.S. officials investigating the $12.8 trillion market for U.S. Treasuries are zeroing in on a practice of trading the debt before it’s issued, said a person familiar with the matter -- spotlighting trades that several recent lawsuits allege are part of big banks’ efforts to rig Treasury markets.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. tipped the government’s avenue of inquiry in a recent regulatory filing. In a standard passage about areas under regulatory scrutiny, the bank’s Nov. 2 disclosure included a handful of words that hadn’t appeared the previous quarter: “offering,” “auction” and “when-issued trading.” It was a reference, the person said, to a fresh line of exploration in the government’s broader, months-old investigation into Treasuries trading.