UBS expected to reach £280m Libor settlement

By PERRY GOURLEY
Published on 04/12/2012 00:00

SWISS bank UBS is expected to pay more than $450 million (£280.1m) to UK and US authorities to settle claims that some of its employees submitted false Libor rates.

UBS was the first bank globally to report suspected rate rigging and has said it has received conditional immunity from some authorities for co-operating with their probes.

In June, Barclays was fined $453m for manipulating Libor benchmark interest rates, becoming the first bank to settle in the on-going probe, prompting the resignation of its chairman and chief executive.

Morgan Stanley has estimated that 11 global banks linked to the Libor scandal could face a total of $14 billion in regulatory and legal settlement costs through 2014.

The focus of regulators is on whether traders colluded with other banks to influence rates in an effort to increase profit.

A UBS spokeswoman said the bank was in the midst of discussions with authorities in the UK and the United States in connection with Libor investigations.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA), declined to comment beyond confirming it is investigating UBS.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the US justice department, which are investigating the Libor issue in the US, could not be reached for comment.

The reliability of Libor has been cast into doubt by the rate-manipulation accusations. Libor is intended to measure the rate at which banks lend to one another and is used as a benchmark for $300 trillion of contracts and loans.