Wall Street's most-obnoxious Libor emails
You've got mail
The Royal Bank of Scotland agreed to pay $610 million in fines to UK and U.S. regulators for its role in the Libor rate-rigging scandal today.
Sixteen banks, including Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan, and Bank of America, have reportedly been the subject of investigations involving the manipulation of the Libor and Euribor interest rates. The rates, which reflect the cost of borrowing between banks, are set based on the submissions of participating banks. The rates serve as the reference for hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of bonds, loans, derivatives and other financial contracts.
RBS is the third bank to settle Libor investigations with regulators. Barclays paid fines of $453 million last June, while UBS AG agreed to a whopping $1.5 billion payout to UK, U.S. and Swiss regulators in December.
The Financial Services Authority has released emails and other communications between traders, employees who submitted Libor rate information, and in some cases, traders and other employees outside the three banks. Here are 10 of the more colorful messages and exchanges released by the FSA. One thing of note: These scions of Wall Street and the City of London tended to write and punctuate like some sniggering grammar-school kids let loose on an unlimited iPhone account.
(Story by Andrew Osterland)
Advertisement
