As the lawsuit brought by ex-Citi Forex trader Rohan Ramchandani against his former employer continues at the New York Southern District Court, the parties in the lawsuit are trying to put an end to discovery disagreements. This becomes clear from documents filed in the Court on January 14, 2022.
The document, seen by FX News Group, states that the parties have met and conferred a number of times (most recently on January 4, 10 and 14, 2022) in attempts to resolve outstanding discovery disputes. They have made substantial progress in resolving those disputes and will continue to meet and confer in further attempts to resolve the remaining issues.
The Court has granted Citi and Ramchandani a brief extension (until February 11, 2022) to complete discovery.
Ramchandani brought this action against Citibank, his former employer. The Complaint alleges one count of malicious prosecution stemming, among other things, from Citi’s disclosure of information about Ramchandani to, and other communications with, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in connection with an investigation into a purported criminal antitrust conspiracy arising out of Ramchandani’s role as trader in FX spot markets, and specifically the EUR/USD FX Spot market, on behalf of Citi.
As detailed in the Complaint, Ramchandani alleges, among other things, that:
- Citi made materially misleading statements regarding Ramchandani, and provided materially misleading accounts of Ramchandani’s conduct, to the DOJ, which played an actionable role in the commencement of the DOJ’s putative criminal case against Ramchandani;
- Citi knew that the statements and accounts it provided were materially misleading and that Ramchandani had not engaged in criminal antitrust violations; and
- Citi acted with malice, within the meaning of governing law. Including by falsely identifying Ramchandani (whom Citi knew was not culpable for a criminal antitrust violation) as the single purported wrongdoer within Citi, thereby, among other things, diverting attention from other actually culpable conduct within Citi.
In this lawsuit, Citi has produced more than 147,000 documents including: (i) the re-production of all documents previously produced to the DOJ in connection with its FX spot market investigation; (ii) production of a more than 3,300 page compilation of documents making up the hearing submissions used in Ramchandani’s United Kingdom Employment Tribunal proceedings; and, (iii) production of more than 1,100 communications between Citi’s representatives and the DOJ concerning the FX investigation.
Defendants also sought, and obtained, authorization pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) from this Court to allow the DOJ to produce grand jury materials regarding Ramchandani’s indictment. The DOJ has produced: (i) the grand jury minutes of its cooperating witness used to procure Ramchandani’s indictment; and, (ii) the DOJ’s memoranda concerning certain meetings between the DOJ and Citi representatives.