Barclays says 5 staff fired over Libor rigging

LONDON (Reuters) - Barclays has fired five employees following its internal investigation of the rigging of Libor interest rates and disciplined another eight people, the head of its investment bank said on Wednesday.

Rich Ricci, chief executive of Barclays' corporate and investment banking, said "a lot" of the individuals identified in its internal probe had left the bank so it could not take action against them. He said authorities had been told the details of those people.

Barclays was fined $450 million (281 million pounds) in June by U.S. and UK regulators after it admitted manipulating the setting of Libor interest rates, a benchmark used to price loans and financial contracts.

The scandal cost the bank's chairman and chief executive their jobs, and prompted Britain to set up an inquiry to assess standards in banking.

"We carried out a very thorough investigation as you will have seen from the reports of the authorities and we have subsequently held an internal review and disciplinary process of those individuals," Ricci told a panel of lawmakers as part of the inquiry.

"Internally when we conducted our process there were 13 people who have been disciplined - of those that remained - and five have been terminated. There's an appeal process for some of the terminations," he said.

Ricci said the bank was in the process of concluding its investigation. It was the first time Barclays has revealed how many staff had been fired or disciplined.

More than a dozen banks are also under investigation by authorities over the setting of Libor rates, but Barclays is the only bank to have settled its case with regulators.

(Reporting by Steve Slater; editing by Mike Nesbit)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/barclays-says-5-staff-fired-over-libor-rigging-164515017--sector.html

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