Court gives Citi, former head of FX trading desk two months to complete discovery

A lawsuit brought by ex-Citi Forex trader Rohan Ramchandani against his former employer continues at the New York Southern District Court, but some deadlines have been set so at least the document discovery appears to be close to completion.

According to an order issued on November 27, 2021 by Magistrate Judge Stewart D. Aaron, the parties in the case will have complete all document discovery by January 21, 2022. No later than April 22, 2022, the parties will have to complete all fact discovery.

The deadlines set by the Court are in line with those suggested by Citi and Ramchandani.

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.

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.