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Interest rate rigging evidence covered up by banks
May 23, 2023
Documents suggest lenders sharply dropped their interest-rate estimates after pressure from central banks.
Evidence was not shown to juries at the time when bankers were jailed for smaller-scale interest-rate “rigging”.
Regulators said they had followed disclosure rules, declined to comment or in one case rebutted the claims.
Some evidence has previously emerged of Bank of England and UK government involvement in manipulation of interest rates. But the evidence indicating it was part of a broader, international drive not just by the UK but by central banks across the western world to push key interest rates down in October 2008 has never been published before.
The evidence indicates that in October 2008, central banks including the Bank of England, the Banque de France, the European Central Bank, Banca d’Italia, Banco de Espana and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York intervened on a large scale in the setting of Libor and Euribor.
At the height of the 2008 financial crisis, when bank lending had almost ground to a halt, central banks around the world urged calm. But my investigation reveals evidence that, behind the scenes, they were pulling levers to restore calm artificially – measures which would later be ruled to be against the law in the UK.
Important Links:
- 4-IN-1 Professional Diploma in Banking, Financial Services & Insurance (PDBFSI): https://tscfm.org/courses/4-in-1-professional-diploma-in-banking-financial-services-insurance-pdbfsi/
