It used to work.

By this I mean it used to be done in a conscientious and serious manner no doubt by people who would have seen their positions as some kind of guardians of financial propriety of the bank.

The fact it clearly failed in the way it did speaks volumes for the change in culture that has occurred in banks since deregulation in the 80's.

From the link you provided:



I'm no expert but I'd guess it is usual to investigate the crime first. Then arrest people.

According to the Independent today, the Serious Fraud Office considered launching a criminal investigation last summer into the attempted rigging of the Libor interest rate but decided against it because it would be a drag on resources. So why has it taken until now for this to become public knowledge and the banks have been able to continue their seedy dealings. I may be cynical but I also find it strange that this news breaks at the same time the latest UK GDP figures are released showing output dropped by 0.3%, this seems to have slipped under the radar.

FFS a guy got six months in jail during the riots for stealing a bottle of water yet these banksters can conspire to fraudulently rig LIBOR interest rates thus saving themselves BILLIONS and they are trying to tell us no laws were broken?!

It's plain to see that the whole global financial system is riddled with corruption and London is the epicentre of this financial crimewave yet the police and politicians do sod all about it. If nobody goes to jail in connection with these recent allegations it really is time to get the pitchforks out!

In case you missed it this all came out as a result of investigation into the rigging of the rate several years ago. When this was found to have occurred it should, IMO, have been dealt with as fraud and so by now instead of us seeing the FSA fining the bank £300m we should also already have seen individuals held accountable for their actions.

Diamonds Aren't Forever

Diamonds Aren't Forever

Actually I did miss that. I was under the impression this all came out as a result of Barclays coming clean to the FSA about it (presumably in the hope of getting a lesser fine than those who didn't own up).

If this is the result of an investigation several years ago why weren't they fined several years ago?

If the US authorities hadn't become involved, I seriously doubt that we'd have heard anything about this at all.

Diamond's appearance before the Finance Committee tomorrow should make good television, he's got absolutely nothing to fear now and I reckon there'll be more than a few people at the Bank of England and parliament whose bums are squeaking pretty loudly.

The FSA only levied a <£60m fine mate, £230m penalty came from the US authorities

This is the interesting bit from the BBC article.

"It emerged over the weekend that Mr Diamond spoke to the deputy governor of the Bank of England Andrew Tucker about Barclays' Libor submissions at the height of the credit crunch in 2008.

The details of that telephone conversation will be an important area of questioning at this week's hearing of the Treasury Committee.

Barclays' managers came to believe, after the conversation between Mr Diamond and Mr Tucker, that the Bank of England had sanctioned them to lie about what they were paying to borrow when providing data to the committees that set the Libor rate."