Posted on 07/20/2014 9:50:30 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
LONDON - Britain's financial watchdog said it had prioritised the worst cases of Libor benchmark interest rate fixing, providing a signal that the largest fines for banks' alleged role in the scandal may already have been levied.
Ten banks and brokerages have paid around $6 billion to date to settle U.S. and European regulatory allegations that they manipulated rates such as Libor (London interbank offered rate), a benchmark against which around $450 trillion of financial products from derivatives to home loans are priced worldwide.
The market has long been braced for similar settlements with Lloyds and Deutsche Bank, which has already been fined by the European Commission over alleged involvement in benchmark interest rate cartels. Industry sources say these two investigations are slowly nearing conclusion.
Martin Wheatley, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), said outstanding settlements had been delayed because some investigations had gone beyond Libor and because of the complexities of regulatory coordination.
The FCA is among around 15 authorities around the world to investigate allegations of collusion and price manipulation in the largely unregulated $5.3 trillion-per-day currency market, by far the world's largest.
Banks including Deutsche Bank, Lloyds, Citigroup, Barclays and JP Morgan Chase have fired or suspended - and in some cases reinstated - foreign exchange traders in the row over alleged manipulation.
(Excerpt) Read more at in.mobile.reuters.com ...
$145 trillion??
seriously??
Is our whole planet worth that much?
Approximately, yes. Remember everybody, a million is a thousand thousand, a billion is a thousand million and a trillion is a thousand billion.
No. It’s $450 trillion. Read it again.
my eyes must have glazed over. lol
No seriously, is the whole world worth ...er... $450 Trillion??
What do you know, my fingers and eyes were able to get through the blurry vision that number causes.
lol’
This is why the Vulcans haven’t visited yet, they do not find the price tag to be logical!
This is such a massive scandal. I am amazed it isn’t being reported more. In terms of money stolen, its much bigger than the 2007 crash, which was more bad bets than fraud notwithstanding what the Left wants to believe. The LIBOR scandal is actual fraud and manipulation of rates thate are the basis for a huge chunk of the floating rate loan market.
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