RBC/LIBOR RBC claims that they were in compliance with the British Bankers association requirements is laughable. It would be like Michael Vick stating he was in compliance with the humane treatment of animals. On top of that the BBA was asleep at the wheel the whole time this was happening. All parties would have had to have been part of the scheme for it to work. Who are they trying to kid?
RBC says it didn’t collude with other banks in Libor rate-rigging
Jul 6, 2012 1:03 PM ET - Bloomberg
Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s largest lender by assets, said it didn’t collude with other banks in setting the London interbank offered rate, distancing itself from probes on whether banks rigged benchmark rates.
“We have determined that RBC acted in accordance with the British Bankers’ Association requirement that our Libor submissions accurately reflected our perception of our cost of funds and that we did not collude with other banks,” Katherine Gay, a spokeswoman for the Toronto-based bank, said today in an emailed statement.
Regulators in the U.S., Europe and Asia are investigating whether banks that help set key rates for US$360-trillion of securities were involved in collusion. Royal Bank is among 16 lenders that participate in setting Libor and one of 18 banks on the U.S. dollar rate-setting panel, according to the British Bankers’ Association.Libor rates are determined by a group of banks’ daily estimates of how much it would cost them to borrow from one another for different time frames and in different currencies, including dollars, euros and yen.
The U.K. Serious Fraud Office is opening a criminal investigation into the attempted manipulation of interbank offered rates that led to Barclays Plc getting a record fine. SFO Director David Green announced the decision to “accept the Libor matter for investigation” today in an e-mailed statement. The U.S. Department of Justice is already conducting a criminal probe.
Barclays, the U.K.’s second-largest bank by assets, was fined 290 million pounds (US$449.3-million) last week for rigging Libor for profit. Chairman Marcus Agius, Chief Executive Officer Robert Diamond and Chief Operating Officer Jerry Del Missier subsequently resigned.
Citigroup Inc., Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, UBS AG, ICAP Plc, Lloyds Banking Group Plc and Deutsche Bank AG are among the firms regulators are investigating.