LIBOR was a thing where banks would estimate how much they would have to pay to borrow money at a fixed rate (in London) for a short period of time. All the ba

LIBOR was a thing where banks would estimate how much they would have to pay to borrow money at a fixed rate (in London) for a short period of time. All the banks made their estimate and the average of that fixed interest rate was published as the LIBOR rate. This rate was published in financial newspapers on a periodic basis, and other loans and things started to rely on this fact to price them. If you had, for example, an adjustable-rate mortgage, the tiny print would say something like "the interest rate will change on June 1 of each year and will be the LIBOR rate published in the Wall Street Journal on the third Thursday of May, plus 4%". This allowed both sides to independently verify the rate and to estimate what it would be as the adjustment date came closer. The scandal was when it became public that multiple banks were reporting estimates that were not good faith estimates, and that some of them were tipping off traders so that they knew what direction LIBOR was going to move before it actually happened. I am not aware of any connection that LIBOR had to adjustable rate bonds