Three former employees of Barclays have been charged in connection with the alleged manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor). The Serious Fraud Office, SFO, said Jay Vijay Merchant, Alex Julian Pabon and Ryan Michael Reich had been charged for conspiracy to defraud.
US regulator has sued 16 banks for allegedly manipulating the London interbank offered rate (Libor).The Libor rate is used to set trillions of dollars of financial contracts, including mortgages and financial transactions around the world.
A new body has been appointed to administer Libor - the London Interbank Offered Rate. A subsidiary of the Intercontinental Exchange Group (ICE), a global network of exchanges and clearing houses, has been appointed to ensure Libor cannot be rigged by banks again.
European authorities are to propose bringing control of the inter-bank lending rate, Libor, under the supervision of a Paris-based regulator. The draft regulation proposes moving oversight of the scandal-hit benchmark from London to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).
The UK Financial Services Authority repeatedly failed to act on warnings that banks were trying to rig inter-bank lending rates (mainly Libor) at height of the financial crisis, according to an internal review published Tuesday by the regulator.
A report into the Libor rate-rigging scandal says the system is broken and suggests its complete overhaul, including criminal prosecutions for those who try to manipulate it. Its author, regulator Martin Wheatley, told the BBC that bankers guilty of fixing Libor in future could be jailed.
HSBC has put aside 2 billion dollars to cover potential mis-selling claims and money-laundering fines as it announces a sharp rise in first-half profits.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended his response in 2008 to concerns that emerged over the benchmark Libor interest rate, arguing on Wednesday that US regulators pushed early and forcefully for reforms.
The deputy governor of the Bank of England (BoE) has said he did not give Barclays instructions to lower its Libor submissions in 2008. Paul Tucker said no government minister had asked him to lean on Barclays over its inter-bank lending rates. But he also told MPs that the BoE and the government feared that Barclays may need a bailout.
The United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has confirmed that it has formally launched an investigation into the rigging of inter-bank lending rates. The case could lead to criminal charges being brought against individuals.