Defaulting banks - where will it stop?

[Jan Klimkowski]

Diamond shouldn't be "giving up" his bonus.

He and his top table should be looking at serious jail time.

But that doesn't happen in the world of financial market capitalism....

Barclays chief Bob Diamond gives up 2012 bonus over £290m fine

Top executives forgo bonuses after bank fined £290m for 'serious, widespread' role in manipulating crucial interest rates

Jill Treanor, City editor

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 June 2012 14.17 BST


Barclays has been slapped with total fines of £290m for its "serious, widespread" role in manipulating the price of crucial interest rates in a move that has forced chief executive Bob Diamond and other top executives to forgo any bonuses for 2012.

The £59.5m fine from the Financial Services Authority is the largest penalty ever levied by the City regulator, which found that Barclays contravened its rules for a number of years and involved "a significant number of employees".

The other penalties paid by Barclays are to settle with the US authorities, the department of justice ($200m) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission ($160m), as part of an industry wide probe into the way that interest rates traded between banks were set.

The investigation covered the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (Euribor) both of which play a critical role in setting the rates of interest that households and major companies pay to borrow.

Libor is used as a benchmark for setting financial contracts and interest rates around the world and is overseen by the British Bankers' Association. The BBA is conducting its own review which will be published later on Wednesday. Banks are asked which rate they think they will be able to borrow from each other for periods of time ranging from overnight to 12 months in currencies including sterling, dollars, euros, yen and Swiss francs.

The FSA found that Barclays had been making submissions to the process that were intended to allow the bank to make profits through its traders speculating on interest rates and reduced the price it submitted during the financial crisis because of management concerns over negative media comment. The FSA said that Barclays' top management was concerned that the higher prices it was saying it expected to borrow at were making it appear that it had liquidity during the crisis and so the bank ended up submitting lower prices than it would otherwise have done.

The FSA made a damning criticism of Barclays and warned other banks that more cases were to come. Tracey McDermott, acting director of enforcement and financial crime, said the misconduct was "serious, widespread and extended over a number of years".

"Making submissions to try to benefit trading positions is wholly unacceptable. This was possible because Barclays failed to ensure it had proper controls in place. Barclays' behaviour threatened the integrity of the rates with the risk of serious harm to other market participants," said McDermott.

"The FSA continues to pursue a number of other significant cross-border investigations in this area and the action we have taken against Barclays should leave firms in no doubt about the serious consequences of this type of failure."

Diamond, who has been pledging to make Barclays a better corporate citizen, is giving up his bonus for 2012 as a result.

"The events which gave rise to today's resolutions relate to past actions which fell well short of the standards to which Barclays aspires in the conduct of its business. When we identified those issues, we took prompt action to fix them and co-operated extensively and proactively with the authorities," Diamond said.

"Nothing is more important to me than having a strong culture at Barclays; I am sorry that some people acted in a manner not consistent with our culture and values."

The boss of Barclays Capital (the investment banking arm) Rich Ricci; the chief operating offer Jerry del Missier and finance director Chris Lucas are giving up their bonuses too

Here's Market Ticker Karl Denninger's take:

It's Ok To Manipulate Markets


This sort of scam ought to lead to prison time. Instead, as has been the pattern, we find ourselves with tiny little wrist-slap fines and nothing more -- and the crooks get to keep the profits besides.

Barclays Plc (BARC), Britain's second-biggest bank by assets, agreed to pay 290 million pounds ($452.3 million) in penalties to settle U.S. and U.K. probes into whether it sought to rig the London and euro interbank offered rates.

Barclays Chief Executive Officer Robert Diamond and other executives will forgo their bonuses as a result, the bank said in a statement.

"The events which gave rise to today's resolutions relate to past actions which fell well short of the standards to which Barclays aspires in the conduct of its business," Diamond said in the statement.

So it's perfectly ok to rig one of the biggest markets in the world -- on which hundreds of trillions of dollars of derivative contracts rest and where extremely tiny moves turn into monstrous profits (or losses) -- and just pay a tiny fine?

I thought corruption was actually illegal?

Employees responsible for Libor submissions have said in interviews with Bloomberg they regularly discussed where to set the measure with traders sitting near them, interdealer brokers and counterparts at rival banks. The talks became common practice after money markets froze in 2007, they said, making it difficult for individual bankers to gauge the cost of borrowing from other lenders.

The obvious answer to the question is that you can rig all the markets you want and steal all the money you want so long as you're a big bankster, and if you get caught -- just pay a tiny fine.

The obvious incentive to do this more often and with ever-larger amounts of money (which has to come from someone -- in this case it comes from the bank's customers and others in the market -- that ultimately means you and I!) should be clear to everyone.

Of course if you steal $50 from the corner Stop-N-Rob, now that deserves prison time.