Free Republic

Bankers caught fixing the interbank lending rate LIBOR could in future face criminal charges after the European Commission announced plans on Wednesday (25 July) to widen the scope of the ongoing legislation on Market Abuse to include rate fixing. Unveiling the proposals, which have been added to the Market Abuse legislation aimed at combating insider dealing and market manipulation, Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding accused those involved as acting as though they were “more banksters than bankers.” Public confidence in banks have “taken a nosedive with the latest scandal,” she said. Among the changes to the legislative package, which was tabled...

A major for Wall Street has been that this whole scandal over rigging LIBOR (a common index of bank borrowing costs that's used to price hundreds of trillions of derivatives), would be seen by regulators and prosecutors as a chance for a "do-over". And that seems to be happening. Ben Protess and Mark Scott at the New York Times report: The department’s criminal division is building cases against several financial institutions and their employees, including traders at Barclays, the British bank, according to government officials close to the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is...

As regulators ramp up their global investigation into the manipulation of interest rates, the Justice Department has identified potential criminal wrongdoing by big banks and individuals at the center of the scandal. -snip- According to people briefed on the matter, the Swiss bank UBS is among the next targets for regulatory action. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is pursuing a potential civil case against the bank. Regulators at the agency have not yet decided to file an action against the bank, nor have settlement talks begun. UBS has already reached an immunity deal with one division of the Justice Department,...

Banks across the world were fixing interest rates in the run-up to the financial crisis but regulators failed to take action to stop it, the former head of Barclays claimed yesterday. Giving evidence to Parliament Bob Diamond said Barclays had raised the issue of banks ‘under-reporting’ the true amount they were having to pay to borrow money but were ignored. He declined to say that the regulators “were asleep at the wheel” but added: “There was an issue out there. (It) should have been dealt with”. But Mr Diamond denied that the Bank of England told him specifically to ‘fix’...