Rabobank chair quits after firm is hit by £663m fine over Libor
DUTCH lender Rabobank was yesterday fined €774m (£663m) by UK, US and European regulators for attempting to manipulate key interest rate benchmarks Libor and Euribor.
The bank’s chairman Piet Moerland resigned on the announcement. “I want to send a very clear signal: a sincere apology and strong condemnation of these inappropriate acts,” he said.
Regulators found more than 500 instances of attempted abuse from 2005 to 2011, across nine managers and 19 traders.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, which fined the bank £105m, said Rabobank claimed it had the correct controls in place in March 2011 but did not actually achieve this until August 2012.
Traders requested the bank’s Libor submission be altered so frequently that one trader said he was “fast turning into [Trader 2’s] Libor bitch!!!!” in internal messages published yesterday.