Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications. M. to a previous statement, where it said: “All either pleaded guilty or were found guilty by a jury. And this book matters, because innocent people were denied their freedom; and if that’s not something worth fighting for, what is? The tactic of interviewing the traders under the guise of co-operating in a fraud investigation in which their employer (or former employer) was the target was simply reprehensible. At the height of the 2008 financial crisis, when bank lending had almost ground to a halt, central banks around the world urged calm.

A co-ordinated drive by national central banks and governments pressed banks to manipulate the Libor and Euribor benchmark interest rates at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, an exposé to be published next week alleges. A while ago, I added triple parentheses around my name in solidarity with the online Jewish community. Andy has always been an uncompromising journalist, and he's fought to tell a dystopian tale of a lowballing scandal at the top of financial society. Former shadow chancellor, Labour MP John McDonnell, agreed that an inquiry should take place into what he described as “scandalous miscarriage of justice”.

However, the US authorities appear not to have investigated the US central bank's rumoured intervention in their final notices for Barclays. However, the lessons still being learned from Libor mean that investigators looking into allegations of fraudulent market practices will do well to consider precisely how widespread those practices were and prevailing cultural influences within an organisation and beyond before deciding whether it is appropriate to prosecute.

in a modern-day version of the Salem witch trials, the financial and political establishment in Britain and America worked together to ruin the lives of 37 low-level City traders. In November 2010, investigating agencies from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to the UK financial regulator were directly informed of this - but they have since kept it secret from Parliament, Congress and the public. Those jailings were seen as a rare example of finance titans getting what they deserved for their role in the 2008 financial crash. Andy Verity has done a MAGNIFICENT job over the years, refusing to follow the government/bank/judicial narrative that the traders were "black sheep" and "greedy bankers". This was at the same time as dozens of former traders were criminally prosecuted for much less serious rate “manipulation”, it is claimed.A new corporate offence of failing to prevent fraud is being introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill. Even more incredibly, some were the very people who had brought the authorities' attention to the crimes in the first place. When PJ posted more realistic rates, however, it appeared as if Barclays was in trouble, so his bosses, reportedly under pressure from the Treasury and the Bank of England, insisted he post numbers that were “within the pack”.

I find it impossible to believe that the prosecuting barristers were not aware that the traders were innocent, and that they were being scapegoated. Ever since I joined Twitter in 2010, my avatar has always been a picture of me, and my Twitter name has always been my own name. But when the scandal explodes into the news, prosecutors allow banks to cover up the evidence pointing to the top.

He has led the media in exposing the true story behind the scandal of interest rate rigging, including a Panorama film revealing the Bank of England’s role in it and 'The Lowball Tapes', a 2022 podcast for BBC Radio 4 shortlisted for two awards. The state's pursuit of Libor traders from 2012 onwards took place amid mass public anger towards banks and bankers for the role they played in the global financial crisis of 2008, which hit economies the world over. Verity claims that when the Treasury and the Bank of England found out this was happening, they didn’t try to stop the fraud – they made it compulsory. In 1991 the former Morgan Stanley trader Douglas Keenan reported that banks were increasing their profits by misreporting the amount it would cost them to borrow.

Presented by Newstalk's Business Editor Joe Lynam, this 30-minute programme focuses on the key business stories from home and abroad, market analysis, new business innovations and profile interviews. Andy Verity is the award-winning economics correspondent for BBC News, covering finance and business on the BBC radio and TV bulletins as well as reporting for Panorama, BBC Newsnight and BBC Radio 4’s investigative strand, File on Four. A system that affects all of us and it is a scandal of such magnitude that it needs further investigation and I seriously hope that Ian Fraser, the author, tackles it and gets a Knighthood for it!For the Big 16 banks, their measure of health is an interest rate measure known as Libor (the London Interbank Offered Rate). Even people like myself (who got not guilty verdicts) subsequently found all professional doors firmly shut.