| Bob Diamond may face Congressional committees Jul 12th 2012, 08:47 http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...amond-congress Quote:
US politicians are considering summoning Barclays' former boss Bob Diamond to Washington to answer questions about the Libor-fixing scandal, in a sign that the controversy is becoming an ever hotter issue in the US.
Two high powered committees, the Senate banking committee and the House financial services committee, are both believed to be considering calling Diamond to testify. Sources close to both committees said they were in the early stages of gathering information and were almost certain to call the former Barclays chief executive after the summer recess...
...Barclays is the first high-profile settlement with regulators, and last month was fined £290m ($450m) by regulators in the UK and US over allegations that it attempted to manipulated Libor. But more than a dozen other banks including Citigroup, HSBC and JP Morgan Chase are being investigated for their roles in setting Libor rates.
White collar crime expert William Black, professor of economics and law at University of Missouri Kansas City, said US action would soon escalate the scandal. "We have very tough disclosure laws. We already seen how horrific these people's emails can be, there's going to be a lot more where that came from," he said...
...Wayne State University law professor Peter Henning said the scandal had the potential to become "the signature financial fraud of the meltdown." He said the trigger point was likely to come if and when a US bank is fined.
Henning pointed out that the Justice Department's fraud division was looking after the case, not the anti-trust division.
"They are looking at this as a fraud case. That's much more serious for any individual involved. Given the amounts of money we are discussing, there could be serious jail time if anyone is convicted," he said.
| | |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.