Okay, so the Associated Press (AP) just reported that "Barclays and its subsidiaries have agreed to pay more than $450 million to settle charges that it tried to manipulate key global interest rates."
That might seem like a lot of money, but remember that this is basically the shareholders of the bank footing the bill for criminal actions of the bank officers. According to the AP:
- The rates affect the costs of hundreds of trillions of dollars in loans and investments such as bonds, auto loans and derivatives.
- The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Wednesday that the incidents occurred between 2005 and 2009 and sometimes took place daily.
- The CFTC said Barclays senior management and multiple traders were involved and that they coordinated with traders at other banks to make false submissions.