Lloyds kicks out eight staff for fiddling Libor
LLOYDS fired eight staff yesterday for trying to fiddle key Libor and repo interest rates between 2006 and 2009, after the bank was fined £226m in June over the wrongdoing.
It came as UBS admitted it is in settlement talks with regulators around the world over the forex benchmark manipulation scandal, the first such bank to make such a confession.
Analysts believe the fines and settlements from the forex investigations could outweigh even the billions paid up over Libor manipulation.
And Bank of America Merrill Lynch was fined $7.65m (£4.7m) for mistakenly over-stating its capital position by around $4bn earlier this year.
Lloyds’ ex-staff will also lose out on pay – £3m in unvested bonus payments and long-term incentives have also bee cancelled.
In future, banks and regulators will be able to claw back bonuses even after they have been paid out, under new rules which came in since this bad behaviour occurred.
It is thought that four other staff were found not to have made serious mistakes and are back at work after the investigation by the board.
Another 10 staff involved in the manipulation had already left the bank and so cannot be punished by their former employer.