Expert Services

Fideres works alongside law firms during the trial and pre-trial phase providing:

• Economic investigations,
• Valuation and damages analysis,
• Expert reports,
• Evidence in court and cross examination.

Research

Research provided by Fideres focuses on the technical aspects of failed financial products and inefficient markets and has received press coverage by various media outlets.^[2][7] Their research into the debt market, and government economic policies, such as CBILS, was also covered by the media.^[8][9] Their work analyzing trading patterns in foreign exchange markets was also featured on BBC Radio 4 in reference to the FOREX scandal.^[10] In 2016, Fideres's cofounder Alberto Thomas appeared on Sky News to discuss the ethics of Hedge Funds conducting and trading upon private exit polls for the UK.^[11]

Corporate Bond Under-Pricing

Research conducted by Fideres found evidence of systemic overpricing in the bond market. Bloomberg^[7] and Reuters^[2] reported on the study, which analyzed the pricing of corporate bonds for the period 2010-2015. It estimated that, due to the mis-pricing carried out by the banks, US corporations may have lost up “to $18 billion” when they issued debt. Business Insider UK considered the research particularly “noteworthy” in relation to the size of the bond market^[19] while Tracy Alloway, executive editor of Bloomberg, wrote on her Twitter account that the story may represent a "Libor moment in the bond market,” in reference to the LIBOR scandal.^[20]

LIBOR Manipulation

After the LIBOR scandal broke in 2012, Thomas appeared as a witness at a Treasury Select Committee hearing on benchmark manipulation on 2 July 2014.^[21] The role of committee was to review the banking sector after banks were found to manipulate various financial benchmarks to their gain.^[22] Thomas talked about why and how the manipulation had occurred, the facts related to the manipulation, and suggested a three-point plan which could help prevent it going forward.^[21]

FOREX Market Rigging

In 2014, Fideres supplied a research highlighting "unusual" price spikes in euro, sterling and other major currencies for the City of Philadelphia Board of Pensions and Retirement's class action lawsuit against major Forex dealer banks.^[23] The suit claimed that seven different banks (Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS) had "deliberately" been manipulating the price of FX trading around the 4pm daily fixing.^[24]

ISDAfix Rigging

In 2014, more than a dozen financial institutions, including Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo, faced allegations of attempting to manipulate the ISDAfix rate used for derivative contracts.^[25] The allegations were based on a research conducted and compiled by Fideres, which alleged that the defendant banks had submitted the same or virtually the same dollar ISDAfix rate quotes almost every day from 2009 to 2012, “down to five decimal points," resulting in the official ISDAfix rate and the banks’ contributions being identical to the ICAP reference rate "well over 90% of the time for at least four years.”^[26]

Cryptocurrency Market Manipulation

Tether, a cryptocurrency stablecoin, which states that its coins are pegged 1:1 with the US dollar, had a class action filed against it in November 2019 alleging that Tether issuances had been timed to trigger movements in the price of Bitcoin. Research conducted by Fideres found that there were significant price moves following Tether issuances. The case alleges that the Tether manipulation caused a loss of "$265 billion in cryptocurrency wealth".^[5]