GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The chairman of Barclays bank, Marcus Agius, resigned Monday 2 July following revelations of the bank’s involvement in interbank interest rate rigging.
Agius’ resignation has prompted British Labour party leader Ed Miliband to call on the departure of chief executive, Bob Diamond. Last week Barclays was fined $453 million for having submitted false data on its London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and the Euribor, the European equivalent, between 2005 and 2009. The Libor rate measures the rate at which banks lend money to each other and is determined on the basis of data submitted daily by a panel of 16 banks. British and US regulators say the bank was responsible for inaccurate submissions on the Libor interest rate.
Several other banks, including Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase and RBC have admitted that they are also being investigated for rate manipulation. UBS says it has been granted limited immunity by certain regulators, such as the US Justice Department, in return for cooperation with the investigation.
The Libor and Euribor are benchmarks by which a number of financial products are priced, and may affect the rate at which households and businesses borrow money.
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