Barclays Bank Fined £290 Million for Fixing LIBOR

According to the Financial Services Authority website they have:

Today fined Barclays Bank Plc (Barclays) £59.5 million for misconduct relating to the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (EURIBOR). This is the largest fine ever imposed by the FSA.

Not only that, but also according to a United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission press release (and using that ever more familar form of words that implies nobody is actually responsible) they have:

Issued an Order today filing and settling charges against Barclays PLC, Barclays Bank PLC (Barclays Bank) and Barclays Capital Inc. (Barclays Capital) (collectively Barclays or the Bank). The Order finds that Barclays attempted to manipulate and made false reports concerning two global benchmark interest rates, LIBOR and Euribor, on numerous occasions and sometimes on a daily basis over a four-year period, commencing as early as 2005.

Like the FSA, the CFTC have also hit Barclays where it hurts (a little):

The CFTC Order requires Barclays to pay a $200 million civil monetary penalty, cease and desist from further violations as charged, and take specified steps, such as making the determinations of benchmark submissions transaction-focused (as set forth in the Order), to ensure the integrity and reliability of its LIBOR and Euribor submissions and improve related internal controls.

According to the Daily Telegraph this afternoon:

The "thick-skinned" Bob Diamond is unlikely to quit over the LIBOR scandal, but that the bank's shareholders may well end up forcing him out.

This appears to imply that unlike the CFTC, the Barclays shareholders feel Bob is in fact guilty of at least a minor indiscretion? We'll keep you posted on what if anything eventually gets pinned on Bob, and by whom.