Bankers found to have rigged Libor rate could face jail

[AtW]

" Bankers found to have rigged Libor could face jail after the SFO said it will look to bring criminal charges against those who attempted to manipulate the world’s key borrowing rate.

David Green QC, director of the SFO, said existing legislation could be used to bring criminal actions against banks implicated in the Libor rigging scandal.

Mr Green did not specify the precise charges that could be brought but it is possible bankers found guilty of manipulation could receive prison sentences of up to 10 years.

The decision to pursue prosecutions comes just over three weeks after the SFO formally announced an investigation into Libor and in particular whether it was possible to launch criminal proceedings against individual banks and bankers found to have rigged borrowing rates.

In a statement the SFO said it was “satisfied that existing criminal offences are capable of covering conduct in relation to the alleged manipulation of Libor and related interest rates”. "

Source: Bankers found to have rigged Libor rate could face jail - Telegraph

AtW's comment - build a brand new triple max security jail just for bankers and require every banker to spend a month in there before they get license to "bank" with a clear message - they'll spend rest of their life in there if they so much as cross the street on red light.

[swamp]

Won't happen.

The SFO has a hopeless record in the courts. They'll bring a couple of bankers to trial. But it will take a couple of years to collect enough evidence to go to court, where they will have to present intricate details of highly complex financial instruments to a bunch of layabouts who have been dragged away from watching Jeremy Kyle for 18 months.

[BlasterBates]

I would have thought this one would be quite simple, i.e. submitting a fake rate, particular since they have e-mails from traders who want to open bottles of Bollinger. It would also be easy to check that the trader's position did indeed reflect the "Bollinger" after the rate was submitted.

[centurian]

So how come they came to the opposite conclusion in the lead up to this story breaking - that it wasn't possible

Or do they only change their mind when the consensus forms is that they are a hopeless bunch of f-wits - and what's the point of paying them a penny in salary if they can't even prosecute an obvious fraud.

This is one case where outsourcing may be the best option. Ship them over to the US, where they don't seem to have a problem locking up fraudsters.

[TimberWolf]

Can't see it happening here, where bankers and politicians are intimately connected.