Barclays pays $450m in Libor settlement
Barclays has been fined for misconduct
By Martha Gill Published 27 June 2012 16:46
Barclays is to pay at least $450m after it was penalised for attempted manipulation of Libor, the interbank lending rate.
Barclays agreed to pay sums to the US Justice Department and the UK's Financial Services Authority, and will pay them fines of $160m and $92.8m respectively.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commision handed out the penalty after it found that the bank had been falsely reporting the benchmark figure over a four year period, sometimes as often as once a day. It ordered the bank to pay $200m, and said it was the largest civil penalty it had ever imposed.
Libor is used to price over $350trn in financial products world wide. Barclays is not the only bank under investigation. Others include Citigroup, HSBC, RBS, and UBS.
Other authorities involved in investigating Barclays include the European Commission and Japan's Financial Services Authority.
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3 comments
The criminality starts in the councils and goes all the way up. In Dorset we even have a MP who is a banker! One can understand the idiot councillors and freemasons not understanding the modern world, but who would have thought that the masters of the universe would get caught out by that new-fangle email thingy.
If "authority" has no authority, and the great and good are all criminals, then why should any one man make 50 times more than another. Morover, why shouldn't we find that man and take his money and his head. After all, a jail term can be avoided if a large fine is paid!
It's all very well punishing the institution. Individuals made the decisions though and until some are jailed for a very long time or have their past earnings taken off them as proceeds of crime then it's human nature to take a risk to make a mint. Even if they are found out and sacked multi-million bonuses mean they will be comfortable for the rest of their lives even if they never work again.
According to our PM, Dave 'Yes we Cam' Cameroon. and Georgeous George 'The Party's Over' Osborne UK banks have a rep white as the driven snow. But these two stalwarts heap shame on state regulators and the civil service. Oh, we forgot - the former Labour government and the present Labour Opposition were doubly blameworthy. HIndsight and political vision - what a combination.
Still, we are a little confused. The Tory line of attack for the financial debacle centres on the rubber regulations imposed by the dastardly, cowardly TonEE bLair and his henchman, beetle-browed Gordy Brown.
Scanning the stentorian headlines, backed by you know who, which appeared in the national press every time the Labour government hinted at tougher regulation, we have no doubt where the Tories stood.
Ring-fenced? Not the bankers - in no way.
Yet, with all this light-touch regulation the Bankers choose to break the rules?
Let's hear the Tory ( Irish pirates, no less )excuses.
Oh, please! Can we expect George to come out of hiding and play with Big Boys Jeremy Paxman and Andy Neill. Politics is a blood sport after all.
Sadists