Mitsubishi UFJ sacks traders as probe hots up
TWO traders in London have been suspended by Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ as regulators extend their investigations into the alleged fixing of benchmark interest rates.
Both traders previously worked at Rabobank, one of several banks being probed. They were confirmed as having been struck off last week, Bloomberg reported late last night.
A spokesperson for Mitsubishi UFJ declined to comment.
Meanwhile, Libor manipulation could become a crime across the whole EU under planned new proposals, it was announced yesterday.
The “outrageous behaviour” revealed in the Barclays scandal shows that current regulation is insufficient or ineffective, commissioner Michel Barnier said.
One way to do this would be to add the manipulation into draft legislation which is set to clamp down on other market abuse like insider trading, he said.
It is thought that Barclays is not the only bank to have entered false data when submitting its interest rates for Libor calculations – investigations are also underway into other UK banks, as well as those in the US, Japan and Canada.