Barclays Traders Claim Senior Executives Knew about Libor Trading Practices

An ex-Barclays banker accused of conspiring to manipulate Libor Libor Libor stands for London Inter-bank offered rate. It is an industry-specific term which most of us would never have heard of until the "Libor scandal" became popularized in 2012. Libor is considered to be one of the most important interest rates in finance, upon which trillions of financial contracts rest. The Libor rate effects over $800,000,000,000,000 in financial deals. Banks simply cannot lend money to one another whenever they like as there is a system in place. Every day a group of leading Libor stands for London Inter-bank offered rate. It is an industry-specific term which most of us would never have heard of until the "Libor scandal" became popularized in 2012. Libor is considered to be one of the most important interest rates in finance, upon which trillions of financial contracts rest. The Libor rate effects over $800,000,000,000,000 in financial deals. Banks simply cannot lend money to one another whenever they like as there is a system in place. Every day a group of leading Read this Term has attempted to implicate three senior Barclays executives, including the chief operating officer of its investment bank, by claiming they were aware of the practice. Jay Merchant, a former trader, is one of five Barclays bankers currently on trial at a London court.

When first interviewed about the case by the Serious Fraud Office in March 2014, Merchant claimed that manipulation of Euribor, another key interest rate benchmark that is linked to the euro, had been widespread in London.

Merchant named a trio of senior Barclays executives that were aware of the manipulation practices on the rates trading desk. The COO of Barclays’ investment bank, Mike Bagguley, senior banker Harry Harrison and the former head of global fixed income, currencies and commodities at Barclays, Eric Bommensath were all in the know according to the court transcripts.

In the court hearing, the jury was told that the Barclays executives implicated by Merchant all denied that manipulation was industry practice or was condoned and all three claimed not to know about it.

Merchant, along with Stylianos Contogoulas, Jonathan Mathew, Alex Pabon and Ryan Reich, deny conspiring with others at Barclays to manipulate U.S. dollar Libor, the benchmark interbank lending rate, for more than two years before September 2007. Four of the men had allegedly traded contracts with counterparties and then told the bank’s Libor submitters, one of whom was Mathew, to move their Libor setting up or down to help their trading book.

In 2012, Barclays received a substantial fine from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the largest financial regulator for all financial markets in the United Kingdom (UK).The UK regulator is responsible for the conduct of firms authorized under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Moreover, the FCA is also responsible for the regulation of behavior in retail and wholesale financial markets, supervision of the trading infrastructure that supports those markets, and the prudential regulation of firms not regulated by the PRA. Its rol The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the largest financial regulator for all financial markets in the United Kingdom (UK).The UK regulator is responsible for the conduct of firms authorized under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Moreover, the FCA is also responsible for the regulation of behavior in retail and wholesale financial markets, supervision of the trading infrastructure that supports those markets, and the prudential regulation of firms not regulated by the PRA. Its rol Read this Term) and accepted that its employees had acted inappropriately by taking into account requests from derivatives traders when making U.S. dollar Libor and Euribor submissions.

The three senior Barclays executives are due to give testimonies in the trial.