FCA fines former RBS trader over Libor rigging
The Financial Conduct Authority has slapped a £250,000 fine on former RBS trader, Neil Danziger, for attempting to manipulate the Libor rate for the Japanese yen.
Danziger has also been banned from any regulated financial activity.
Mark Steward, executive director of Enforcement and Market Oversight at the FCA, said: "Proper standards of market conduct reflect the interests of the whole community in the well-being of our financial markets. Mr Danziger’s reckless disregard of these standards has no place in the financial services industry.
"Market participants cannot turn a blind eye to what the community, through its laws and regulations, expects, nor apply their own, lower standards. This substantial fine and ban should reinforce that message.”
The FCA found that between February 2007 and November 2010, Danziger routinely made requests to RBS’s primary submitters, intending to benefit the trading positions for which he and other derivatives traders were responsible. He also took those trading positions into account when acting as a substitute submitter and on two occasions, obtained a broker’s assistance to attempt to manipulate the JPY Libor submissions of other banks.
In addition, between September 2008 and August 2009, Danziger entered into 28 wash trades, the purpose of which was to make or facilitate brokerage payments to two firms of brokers in recognition of his receipt of personal hospitality.