Despite the inception of the Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) scandal in 2012, the repercussions and fallout of the abuse continues to reverberate through the industry. Following a lengthy investigation, a trio of ICAP Plc’s brokers were acquitted by a UK court, which had stemmed from a previous complaint alleging LIBOR abuse.
This was not the first time ICAP brokers or former employees had come under fire from prosecutors. Late last year, broker Colin Goodman went to the courts in a bid to defend himself after being presenting his predictions of the direction of the Japanese yen Libor market as genuine estimates. The man known as “Lord Libor” was just one of several facing regulatory scrutiny.
The finality of the latest complaint against Darrell Read, Colin Goodman and Danny Wilkinson has its roots back in 2014 when the three men appeared in court to plead not guilty to charges of conspiring with traders at banks to manipulate Japanese yen LIBOR-benchmark interest rates. ICAP had previously paid upwards of $90 million to settle with UK and US regulators.
Clearing the Air
However, Read, Goodman, and Wilkinson breathed a sigh of relief after US prosecutors dropped the former criminal complaint over LIBOR abuse against the aforementioned individuals – the result follows after they had been acquitted by a UL court earlier this year.
The initial US charges lobbied against them stem from September 2013, which represented one of the first tranches of manipulation allegations into LIBOR. A parallel US operation had taken place even after UK courts acquitted the trio. According to US prosecutors in a recent regulatory filing on the investigation: "The U.S. moves to dismiss the complaint because of the final adjudication of the case against these defendants for the same underlying conduct in the U.K.”
