US: DOJ SocGen brass Ordered Libor rigging

According to the Financial Times top executives at Société Générale ordered the bank’s manipulation of the US-dollar Libor interest rate sin 2015.

Michel Péretié, the former head of corporate and investment banking, and Didier Valet, who recently resigned as deputy chief executive, allegedly directed the rate-rigging scheme, according to a Department of Justice letter to the French authorities.

The DoJ wrote that evidence it had gathered, including from documents produced by SocGen and its lawyers, “indicates that the directives to submit these falsely low rates came from” Mr Péretié, Mr Valet and two lower-level employees, reported FT.

The company on Monday agreed a $1.3bn settlement with US and French authorities over the Libor rate-rigging and a separate Libyan bribery case. Between 2004 and 2009, the French bank paid $90 million in bribes to a Libyan broker, who then paid Libyan officials, the US Justice Department announced.  In addition to a $585 million fine for the foreign bribery case, Société Générale will pay $275 million for manipulating the London InterBank Offered Rate between May 2010 and October 2011.

Full Content: Financial Times

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