AmEx Says DOJ, Regulators Probing Foreign-Exchange Business

(Bloomberg) -- American Express Co. said the U.S. Department of Justice and several regulators have sought information on its foreign-exchange international payments business.

The company has received subpoenas from the civil and criminal divisions of the DOJ, and inquiries from overseers including the Federal Reserve, it said in a regulatory filing Tuesday. AmEx said it doesn’t expect the matter to have a “material adverse impact” on its business.

The company said earlier this year it started a third-party review of its pricing in the FXIP unit after the Wall Street Journal reported that some employees had boosted exchange rates for business customers without notifying them. AmEx said in the Tuesday filing that the unit accounts for less than 0.5 percent of its total net revenue.

AmEx shares declined 0.3 percent at 3:46 p.m. in New York. The stock has risen 5 percent so far this year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael J. Moore in New York at mmoore55@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Steve Dickson, Dan Reichl

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