Barclays sacks 5 for faking Libor

Published Nov 30, 2012

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BARCLAYS had fired five employees following its internal investigation into the rigging of interest rates and disciplined another eight people, the head of its investment bank said on Wednesday.

Rich Ricci, the chief executive of Barclays’ corporate and investment banking, said “a lot” of the individuals identified in its internal probe had left the bank so it could not take action against them. He said authorities had been told the details of those people.

Barclays was fined $450 million (R3.9 billion) in June by US and UK regulators after it admitted manipulating the setting of the London interbank offered rate (Libor), a benchmark used to price loans and financial contracts.

The scandal cost the bank’s chairman and chief executive their jobs, and prompted Britain to set up an inquiry to assess standards in banking.

“We carried out a very thorough investigation, as you will have seen from the reports of the authorities, and we have subsequently held an internal review and disciplinary process of those individuals,” Ricci told a panel of legislators as part of the inquiry.

“Internally when we conducted our process there were 13 people who have been disciplined – of those that remained – and five have been terminated. There’s an appeal process for some of the terminations,” he said.

More than a dozen banks are being investigated over the setting of Libor. – Reuters

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