Lloyds Banking Group is to pay fines of £218 million for fixing interest rates including Libor (the rate at which banks lend to one another) the Financial Conduct Authority and US Commodities and Futures Trading Commission have announced. The FCA described the behaviour as ‘serious misconduct’, and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said the rigging was ‘reprehensible’. Lloyds follows in the footsteps of Barclays and RBS which have also been fined for market manipulation. But should the banks be punished for their transgressions? In February, The Spectator‘s business editor, Martin Vander Weyer, asked whether fines might weaken the banks we want strengthened, and whether they might hit us rather than the banks. Here’s what he said:-
As with allegations against elderly celebrities of groping long ago, there must come a point when it is counterproductive to go on pursuing banks for every last instance of market abuse during the decade of folly.
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