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There is no recording of any BoE official asking Libor to be changed, which I had partially expected. Instead, a Barclay employee is on record saying: "The bot

There is no recording of any BoE official asking Libor to be changed, which I had partially expected. Instead, a Barclay employee is on record saying: "The bottom line is you're going to absolutely hate this... but we've had some very serious pressure from the UK government and the Bank of England about pushing our Libors lower." This is the equivalent of hearsay evidence, and how Dearlove brought up the BoE only illustratively further distances the BoE. Also, the manager just says they had pressure for lower BoE rates -- but charitably read, the BoE may have meant through actually lending at lower rates and trusting your fellow banks. After all ensuring trust in the banking system is a core BoE function. Your parents might pressure you to get better grades, but often they don't intend cheating. Now does is this evidence that the UK government wanted Libor rates lower -- sure. Does it increase the chances the BoE encouraged the manipulation -- probably. But is it a smoking gun where the BoE explicitly instructs manipulation? Far from.

raesene6 10y ago
Well they'd have to be pretty stupid to put it in writing, given that it was against the rules. It seems to me a shame that people lower down the chain, who didn't stand to personally profit from the manipulation are going to be the only ones to take the fall for this. The suggestion that the rate fixer acted independently to manipulate the rates, even though he will have known that he risked prosecution as a result, just isn't credible to me. It's obvious that general banks + BoE colluded to fix a rate that was meant to be based on the realities of lending, and that they did so either to make more money (in the case of the general banks) or to instill confidence in the banking system (in the case of BoE). Whilst there may not be enough evidence to prosecute, it seems wishful thinking to say that the BoE didn't know that people might take their wishes and translate them into effectively illegal actions. The point of Libor was that it was meant to be a reflection of bank's actual rates, so any pressure for lower rates inevitably is pressure to cook the books, and the BoE staff involved will have known that.
- K9-Mumbai 10y ago
  "It seems to me a shame that people lower down the chain, who didn't stand to personally profit from the manipulation are going to be the only ones to take the fall for this." The point is now that its clear that the people who have been arrested are not to blame - what happens next? They rot in jail while years pass while the country and the SFO and the courts debate on who was really to blame!?

raesene6 10y ago

Well they'd have to be pretty stupid to put it in writing, given that it was against the rules. It seems to me a shame that people lower down the chain, who didn't stand to personally profit from the manipulation are going to be the only ones to take the fall for this. The suggestion that the rate fixer acted independently to manipulate the rates, even though he will have known that he risked prosecution as a result, just isn't credible to me. It's obvious that general banks + BoE colluded to fix a rate that was meant to be based on the realities of lending, and that they did so either to make more money (in the case of the general banks) or to instill confidence in the banking system (in the case of BoE). Whilst there may not be enough evidence to prosecute, it seems wishful thinking to say that the BoE didn't know that people might take their wishes and translate them into effectively illegal actions. The point of Libor was that it was meant to be a reflection of bank's actual rates, so any pressure for lower rates inevitably is pressure to cook the books, and the BoE staff involved will have known that.

K9-Mumbai 10y ago
"It seems to me a shame that people lower down the chain, who didn't stand to personally profit from the manipulation are going to be the only ones to take the fall for this." The point is now that its clear that the people who have been arrested are not to blame - what happens next? They rot in jail while years pass while the country and the SFO and the courts debate on who was really to blame!?