Bank of England implicated in LIBOR scandal by BBC

Bank of England, Royal Exchange and GoldCore London HQ in No 1 Cornhill

The LIBOR scandal reemerged yesterday as the BBC’s Panorama uncovered a secret recording implicating the Bank of England in the interest rate manipulation saga.

According to the BBC the central bank pressured commercial banks during the 2008 financial crisis to lower their settings for LIBOR.

In a telephone recording, aired last night in the UK, a senior Barclays manager, Mark Dearlove, can be heard instructing Libor submitter Peter Johnson, to lower his rates.

Mr Johnson: “So I’ll push them below a realistic level of where I think I can get money?”

Mr Dearlove: “The fact of the matter is we’ve got the Bank of England, all sorts of people involved in the whole thing… I am as reluctant as you are… these guys have just turned around and said just do it.”

The Barclays submitter, Peter Johnson, who is featured in the phone call was jailed in 2016 after pleading guilty to accepting requests to manipulate LIBOR.

Previous assurances from the Bank of England that they were not involved in LIBOR fixing have now come under question again.

It has long been rumoured that the LIBOR fixing went higher than the banks and individuals that were originally implicated.

In 2012, a 2008 telephone note came to light which recorded a phone call between Paul Tucker, executive at the Bank of England at the time and Barclays’ boss Bob Diamond.