Banks?

[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18622264[/url

and

[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/27/barclays-bank-big-obey-rules[/url

This is absolutely stunning IMO.

The key point form that is this:

"Strip away the acronyms and the charges against Barclays are straightforward. Its traders and senior management are accused of tampering with two key interest rates to bolster their own profits. And they apparently did this not once, but repeatedly over four years."

Why aren't people being arrested as I type this? A paltry fine from the FSA isn't right. It amounts to 10 days profit of Barclays bank. What is more fining the institution itself only hurts the shareholders not the perpetrators of the crime

If I defrauded anyone out of as few thousand quid I would be in the dock.

People need to do jail time for this but I doubt they will.

How can you possibly compare this to areal crime – such as looting a bottle of water during last summer's riots – and suggest that those who got a little muddled at a bank should be punished in anything like the same way as a real criminal?

And the fine is a disgrace too: Barclays should be excused it – just as Goldman Sachs were excused a fine for something or other.

Quite. And Bob Diamond is totally blameless as well. Why on earth should he have known how his bank set its LIBOR rate (which is a fundamental indicator of a banks financial health amongst other things)? Why on earth would he take an interest in that?

Was pondering starting a thread myself, but in the spirit of this thread I'm so annoyed that they can't be left to their own devices without being bothered by pesky things like morals and "the law". I'll happily donate my house and all its contents to Barclays to help them pay off the fine. Sterling chaps, every one.

Interestingly and more peversely, the fine is levied by the FSA and paid by Barclays. The fines the FSA collect are then taken into account when setting the levies on the banks to pay for the functions of the FSA.

So this fine will be directly reflected by lower bank levies to police the banks. Effectively giving Barclays a discount on its fine.

You definitely couldn't make that one up

Lol and if it turns out that they were all in on it and end up with similar fines they might end up as a direct offset to the levies.
I'm also sure I heard from the FSA spokeswoman last night that they'd entered a no prosecution agreement with Barclays.

Although to be fair Osborne is trying to get it paid to government to benefit taxpayers.

Apparently, no criminal act has been committed in terms of the FSMA. Personally, I find it hard to believe that there has not been a criminal act committed under other legislation (and if not, the law is an ass). Now, if a criminal act has been committed and the perpetrators benefitted financially (which from the allegations seems likely) then surely they could have their assets seized and be jailed under the Proceeds of Crime Act? It's about time this country got tough on this sort of thing.

From BBC

"London Inter Bank Offered Rate. The rate at which banks in London lend money to each other for the short-term in a particular currency. A new Libor rate is calculated every morning by financial data firm Thomson Reuters based on interest rates provided by members of the British Bankers Association."

So a private company (with no interest in making money

) is calculating interest rates by which other private companies ([uwith[/u an interest in making money) are then, er, making money. But the second company is providing duff info to the first for the calculations so that they benefit more. Sounds extremely dodgy to me.

Well, what can you expect of a system at the heart of the casino economy?

It used to work.

By this I mean it used to be done in a conscientious and serious manner no doubt by people who would have seen their positions as some kind of guardians of financial propriety of the bank.

The fact it clearly failed in the way it did speaks volumes for the change in culture that has occurred in banks since deregulation in the 80's.

From the link you provided:



I'm no expert but I'd guess it is usual to investigate the crime first. Then arrest people.

According to the Independent today, the Serious Fraud Office considered launching a criminal investigation last summer into the attempted rigging of the Libor interest rate but decided against it because it would be a drag on resources. So why has it taken until now for this to become public knowledge and the banks have been able to continue their seedy dealings. I may be cynical but I also find it strange that this news breaks at the same time the latest UK GDP figures are released showing output dropped by 0.3%, this seems to have slipped under the radar.

FFS a guy got six months in jail during the riots for stealing a bottle of water yet these banksters can conspire to fraudulently rig LIBOR interest rates thus saving themselves BILLIONS and they are trying to tell us no laws were broken?!

It's plain to see that the whole global financial system is riddled with corruption and London is the epicentre of this financial crimewave yet the police and politicians do sod all about it. If nobody goes to jail in connection with these recent allegations it really is time to get the pitchforks out!

In case you missed it this all came out as a result of investigation into the rigging of the rate [useveral years ago[/u. When this was found to have occurred it should, IMO, have been dealt with as fraud and so by now instead of us seeing the FSA fining the bank £300m we should also already have seen individuals held accountable for their actions.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18685040Diamonds Aren't Forever[/url

Actually I did miss that. I was under the impression this all came out as a result of Barclays coming clean to the FSA about it (presumably in the hope of getting a lesser fine than those who didn't own up).

If this is the result of an investigation [iseveral years ago[/i why weren't they fined [iseveral years ago[/i?

If the US authorities hadn't become involved, I seriously doubt that we'd have heard anything about this at all.

Diamond's appearance before the Finance Committee tomorrow should make good television, he's got absolutely nothing to fear now and I reckon there'll be more than a few people at the Bank of England and parliament whose bums are squeaking pretty loudly.

The FSA only levied a <£60m fine mate, £230m penalty came from the US authorities

This is the interesting bit from the BBC article.

"It emerged over the weekend that Mr Diamond spoke to the deputy governor of the Bank of England Andrew Tucker about Barclays' Libor submissions at the height of the credit crunch in 2008.

The details of that telephone conversation will be an important area of questioning at this week's hearing of the Treasury Committee.

Barclays' managers came to believe, after the conversation between Mr Diamond and Mr Tucker, that the Bank of England had sanctioned them to lie about what they were paying to borrow when providing data to the committees that set the Libor rate."

Wasn't the alleged rigging going on for several years before that though?

At the height of the crunch anything is possible. If you recall the South American debt crisis governments told banks and auditors not to write down bad loans but to reschedule them. That's because all the world's big banks couldn't have taken the losses as they were so big.

Well, on the Beeb I just read this re Crazy Diamond's forthcoming Treasury Committee gig:



Barclays managers did not "allegedly" come to believe, they bluntly "came to believe". That the Bank of England had sanctioned them to lie

Who knew about this conversation? (Not an "alleged" conversation"icon_wink.gif.

Who knew that he is going to be questioned about it?

Who knew what Barclays managers had been led to believe and how else could they have come to believe it, if not via the only link between them and Tucker, viz Mr. Diamond?

Gets better by the day.

Seems like Bob may think there is evidence / suspicion he is personally implicated and this is his "defence"? Otherwise, why imply he thought it was all OK?

Barclays also appear to be suggesting that Tucker got the nod from Ed Balls.

Although quite what influence the Children's Minister, in the midst of the Baby P scandal, could exert is baffling