Barclays to pay over US $450m to settle charges regarding LIBOR

Barclays PLC, the second largest bank by assets in Britain, has agreed to pay more than 450 million U.S. dollars to settle U.S. and British joint charges that it attempted to manipulate interest rates and made false reports concerning global benchmark interest rates, U.S. regulators and the bank itself said on Wednesday.Barclays attempted to manipulate and made false reports regarding two global benchmark interest rates -- LIBOR and Euribor -- on numerous occasions and sometimes on a daily basis over a four-year period commencing as early as 2005, said the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in a statement. LIBOR and Euribor refer to the London Interbank Offered Rate and the Euro Interbank Offered Rate, respectively.The CFTC also found that Barclays routinely made artificially low LIBOR submissions to protect its reputation from negative market and media perceptions concerning Barclays’ financial condition during the global financial crisis from late August of 2007 through early 2009. To settle these probes, the CFTC required Barclays to pay civil monetary penalty of 200 million dollars. Barclays also agreed to pay 160 million dollars as part of an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice’s criminal unit. In addition, the bank was also fined about 92.7 million dollars by Britain’s Financial Services Authority.

News

Barclays to pay over US $450m to settle charges regarding LIBOR