The losers of the Libor scandal

The Treasury Select Committee published its stinging report into Libor today, and it makes uncomfortable reading for all involved. ‘That doesn’t look good,’ committee chair Andrew Tyrie said when describing the failure of both the FSA and the Bank of England to spot the manipulation at the time. His committee’s report also pointed out that things did not look good for Bob Diamond’s ‘highly selective’ evidence, either, saying:

‘The committee found Mr Diamond’s attempt to subdivide the later period of wrongdoing [following his telephone conversation with Paul Tucker] neither relevant nor convincing. It does not appear that the conversation between Mr Tucker and Mr Diamond made a fundamental difference to Barclays’ behaviour, given the repeated instances of ‘low-balling’ submissions to the Libor fixing process by Barclays set out in the FSA final notice covering the year running up to the phone call between Mr Tucker and Mr Diamond.’

For Diamond, this is little more than a sting in the tail of the Libor scandal, given he has already relinquished his post at Barclays while hanging on to a tidy sum of money.