Deutsche Bank hit by record $2.5bn Libor-rigging fine
Jill Treanor, 23 April 2015
Germany’s Deutsche Bank has been fined a record $2.5bn (£1.7bn) for rigging Libor, ordered to fire seven employees and accused of being obstructive towards regulators in their investigations into the global manipulation of the benchmark rate.
The penalties on Germany’s largest bank also involve a guilty plea to the Department of Justice (DoJ) in the US and a deferred prosecution agreement. The regulators released a cache of emails, electronic messages and phone calls showing the attempts to move the rate used to price £3.5tn of financial contracts.
“I’m begging u pleassssssssssssssseeeeeeeeee I’m on my knees” is among the examples provided by regulators in hundreds of pages of detail accompanying the fine – the eighth related to rigging interest rates. Another trader, on learning a rate was unchanged, sent a message saying: “Oh bullshit…..strap on a pair and jack up the 3M (month). Hahahahaha.” .
Georgina Philippou, the acting director of enforcement and market oversight at the Financial Conduct Authority, said the UK’s portion of the fine – £227m – was a record for Libor because the bank had been misleading the regulator. The manipulation took place to generate profits and was pervasive, the FCA said.
