Corporate foreign exchange news

Senior executives at the Bank of Canada were cognizant of the possibility that key economic data had been leaked weeks before a spike in the Canadian dollar prompted an internal security review by Statistics Canada, Bloomberg has learned.Copies of emails and phone messages obtained through freedom of information laws have shown that senior staff, including deputy governors David Longworth and Pierre Duguay, were aware that unemployment and inflation reports may have been leaked for many months.Suspicions were piqued on May 8th after the loonie rose as much as 0.7 per cent in the hour before unemployment figures were released. A further rise of 1.8 per cent was recorded after the unexpectedly strong data were released.In an interview with Bloomberg, Bank spokesperson Jeremy Harrison said: "The Bank of Canada does not have the authority to make the determination as to whether there was a data leak at Statistics Canada."The Canadian dollar is continuing to perform strongly on currency markets this morning and is trading close to a five-week high on the back of mixed crude and equities data.