Almunia to slap global banks with EU complaint over rate-rigging settlements

According to three people who are familiar with the investigation, European Commission member Joaquín Almunia will be seeing to the punishment of four global banks before leaving office on October 31 this year for snubbing rate-rigging settlements. JPMorgan Chase & Co, HSBC Holdings Plc, Credit Agricole SA and interdealer broker ICAP Plc are reportedly under investigation and could face massive fines due to the Euribor and Libor rate-rigging scandals. Two of them said that Almunia has plans to send statements of objections sometime near Easter.

The Euro Interbank Offered Rate or Euribor, and the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor provides benchmarks to banks' expected borrowing costs over different periods of time, Bloomberg said.

In an interview, professor Pierre-Henri Conac, who specializes in banking at the University of Luxembourg, said in a Bloomberg interview, "He will want to end on a high note. He'll be happy to say: ‘I did it.'"

Bloomberg said Almunia is insistent that he will be able to get a clean sweep of settlements in the rate-rigging cases after the four companies hold out and ruined his goal. The news agency said that Almunia has seven more months before leaving his post to add to his legacy once he quits political life this year.

Several financial institutions, which include Deutsche Bank AG and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, had reached accords with the commission and admitted their liability in the rate-rigging scandal. In December, the companies had agreed to shell out €1.7 billion or $2.4 billion in fines, which is an EU record.

Two of the sources told Bloomberg that Almunia might encounter difficulties in getting settlements from the four who have held out from the accords if some of them raise confidentiality concerns that are similar to those that evaded a credit-derivatives trading probe.

Lawyer Adrien Giraud at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP said, "It's hard to see any reason for the parties to help the commission (finalize the Libor and Euribor cases before its mandate ends). To the contrary, they might hope for more goodwill from Almunia's successor who would be passed down a file that's already been put together in relation to an infringement that didn't take place during his or her mandate."

Tags

Euribor rigging scandal, London Interbank Offered Rate manipulation, European Commission member Joaquín Almunia

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