Brussels: European Parliament lawmakers may hold a public hearing into the scandal engulfing interbank lending rates in an effort to prevent any repeat of such market manipulation.
Bankers and regulators should be called to appear before the parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee, said Arlene McCarthy, the legislator leading work in the assembly on draft rules against market abuse.
“The culture of the banking industry has not changed and this culture was aided and abetted by regulatory failures,” McCarthy said in an e-mailed statement.
“The more information that comes to light on the extent and gravity of this scandal the more urgent it is for the ECON committee to call in the banks and regulators to answer for their failures and manipulation.”
Confidence in the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, a benchmark for financial products valued at $360 trillion (Dh1.3 quadrillion) worldwide, has been dented by Barclays Plc’s admission that it submitted false rates. Robert Diamond, who resigned as London-based Barclays’s CEO, told British lawmakers this month that other banks also lowballed Libor submissions.
The parliament this week published draft rules to make the rigging of interbank lending rates punishable as a criminal offence.
The parliament, which meets in Brussels and Strasbourg, France, brings together directly elected legislators from the EU’s 27 nations to agree on the bloc’s laws.
