The Federal Reserve Board said this week that it will levy a $1.2 million fine on a former Barclays trader who is alleged to have manipulated foreign exchange (FX) pricing benchmarks.

The Fed also said it would seek to permanently bar the trader, Christopher Ashton, from working in the banking industry over allegations that he used electronic chat rooms to coordinate FX trading and manipulation of pricing benchmarks.

Ashton held senior positions at Barclays Bank PLC in London between September 2006 and November 2013. While working as a foreign exchange trader there, he used chat rooms to share confidential client information with other traders and to coordinate with competitors to manipulate benchmark currency rates, the Fed said in its enforcement action.

Barclays suspended Ashton in November 2013 and terminated his employment in May 2015 over the misconduct, the Fed said.

In part because Barclays conducts operations in the United States and because Ashton colluded with traders in the U.S., the Fed sought jurisdiction to penalize him.