Top banks fined after Libor manipulation
THREE banks were yesterday fined after traders tried to manipulate Swiss franc derivatives and Libor, the European Commission announced.
It is not thought that any customers were actually harmed by the attempts to rig the market.
UBS was fined €12.65m (£10m), JP Morgan €10.53m and Credit Suisse €9.17m over claims traders attempted to manipulate the spread on derivative products.
RBS would have been fined €5m, but was given immunity for flagging up the problem to regulators.
“Following discussions with the EU Commission, Credit Suisse has decided to settle this case, which relates to bid-offer spreads charged on short-term interest rate derivatives, in order to avoid lengthy legal proceedings,” said a Credit Suisse spokesman.
JP Morgan was also fined €61.68m for alleged attempts to manipulate Swiss franc Libor. RBS would have been fined €110m, but again given immunity for whistleblowing.
“RBS condemn the behaviour by a small number of employees identified in today’s announcement by the European Commission,” said RBS in a statement.
“These offences were unacceptable and have no place in the RBS we are building. Once they were uncovered, management took swift action to notify our European competition regulator with the aim of quickly resolving this matter.”
The settlements came after the EC’s wider investigation into Libor, which concluded late last year.
Swiss regulators are still looking into claims of manipulation of the key interest rate benchmark.