U.S. Justice Department Preparing Charges Against Banks

The Justice Department is preparing a fresh round of legal attacks on the world’s biggest banks, again questioning Wall Street’s role in a broad array of financial markets. Authorities plan to go after banks, traders and their bosses for currency-rate rigging by the end of the year. Actions against individuals will most likely follow in 2015, according to people familiar with the probe. Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and UBS are among the dozen or so banks under investigation. British regulators held meetings this week with six major banks in a long-running investigation into possible manipulation of currencies markets there as well.