Traders in London, New York, Japan and elsewhere colluded to manipulate the Libor rate so as to make massive profits or conceal losses, at the direct expense of pension funds and mortgage and loan holders.
These practices—involving what the British Financial Services Authority (FSA) admits were a “significant number of employees”—played a major role in determining the extent of the global financial crash of 2008.
A former Barclays executive who was close to the bank’s Libor-setting operation told the Financial Mail that the Libor mis-quotes “gave an illusion of stability and was a key factor in masking the severity of the crisis.”
A legal case in the United States is seeking damages of £70 billion ($110 billion) from Barclays and almost £80 billion ($126 billion) from the UK government-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)—figures far in excess of the banks’ market valuations.
This alone would make it the financial crime of the century. Yet after investigations going back to 2007 in at least three countries, no one has been prosecuted. Instead, those responsible have earned millions upon millions.
It was not until this week that the two leading figures in Barclays, Chairman Marcus Agius and Chief Executive Bob Diamond, reluctantly resigned. Both can expect handsome severance packages.
Meanwhile, the British Conservative/Liberal Democrat government has done nothing other than promise yet another toothless parliamentary inquiry—the standard mechanism for burying every crime of the ruling elite from the Iraq war to the News of the World phone hacking scandal.
The reasons are obvious. Far more than a few dozen traders are involved. The 16 banks cited in the class action taken by the City of Baltimore, Charles Schwab Corp. and others include Barclays, RBS, HSBC, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, UBS and Deutsche Bank.
These practices—involving what the British Financial Services Authority (FSA) admits were a “significant number of employees”—played a major role in determining the extent of the global financial crash of 2008.
A former Barclays executive who was close to the bank’s Libor-setting operation told the Financial Mail that the Libor mis-quotes “gave an illusion of stability and was a key factor in masking the severity of the crisis.”
A legal case in the United States is seeking damages of £70 billion ($110 billion) from Barclays and almost £80 billion ($126 billion) from the UK government-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)—figures far in excess of the banks’ market valuations.
This alone would make it the financial crime of the century. Yet after investigations going back to 2007 in at least three countries, no one has been prosecuted. Instead, those responsible have earned millions upon millions.
It was not until this week that the two leading figures in Barclays, Chairman Marcus Agius and Chief Executive Bob Diamond, reluctantly resigned. Both can expect handsome severance packages.
Meanwhile, the British Conservative/Liberal Democrat government has done nothing other than promise yet another toothless parliamentary inquiry—the standard mechanism for burying every crime of the ruling elite from the Iraq war to the News of the World phone hacking scandal.
The reasons are obvious. Far more than a few dozen traders are involved. The 16 banks cited in the class action taken by the City of Baltimore, Charles Schwab Corp. and others include Barclays, RBS, HSBC, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, UBS and Deutsche Bank.
