(Bloomberg) — In 2002, the metals industry was jolted into uproar, after a US warehouse owner announced it would start charging a fee to safely buckle up each cargo being trucked from its depots in the London Metal Exchange’s storage network.
Overnight, traders trying to access metal backing the LME’s futures contracts were hit with tens of thousands of dollars in extra costs for work that took a matter of minutes. If any refused to pay, their metal stayed put, meaning the warehouse could keep charging rent. After furious complaints, Metro International Trade Services was reprimanded by the LME for charging to discourage withdrawals from its sheds.
A decade later, Metro was catapulted into the public consciousness at the center of a far bigger firestorm — blamed for orchestrating aluminum delivery backlogs that roiled the LME and at their peak stretched for longer than two years as rivals followed suit. Executives from Metro and then-owner Goldman Sachs Group Inc. were among those dragged to a US Senate inquiry and accused of predatory behavior that distorted raw-material prices for everyone from carmakers to beer companies.
For the rest of this article: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/international/2024/09/29/the-mavericks-of-metals-are-back-rocking-a-15-trillion-market/