The Royal Bank of Scotland might be forced to plead guilty of manipulating Libor, as part of its settlement with US authorities, the Guardian reports.
According to the newspaper, the British bank will be charged around £500m by regulators both in the UK and the US. But, American regulators, not satisfied with a hefty fine, are hopping to pin criminal charges on RBS.
While the crime charger are not a certainty yet, other banks previously investigated and accused by US authorities had to plead guilty. UBS Japan had to plead guilty of to felony wire fraud and its parent company had to admit and accept responsibility for its misconduct, on top of fines.
Barclays, one of the key players in the investigation, surprisingly got off with a fine after agreeing to fully cooperate. It seems the bank has taken that a cue to continue “business as usual” as the word got out that the bank is preparing to hand its new chief executive a bonus of at least £1m for 2012, despite the bank’s involvement in the Libor scandal in that year. The head of the Barclays remuneration committee will have to answer to MPs and peers on the banking standards commission, set up after Barclays’ Libor fine.
The next couple of weeks will tell how the two scandals panned out.
