Diamond ‘physically ill’ over Libor fixing
Former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has claimed he only ever saw the bank’s own Libor submissions rather than their values relative to others.
Speaking to MPs during a much-anticipated Treasury select committee hearing, Mr Diamond claimed he was “physically ill” when he discovered, during the FSA investigation, that rates had been “low balled” by traders.
Mr Diamond told MPs that he was not involved in any fixing of the rates and was not aware of it at the time.
Referring to the release of a memo detailing a conversation with Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker about Barclays’ Libor level, Mr Diamond said: “The call from Mr Tucker was alerting me that there was concern from Whitehall officials that our rates were high.
“I saw that it was important for me to get in touch with Whitehall to explain.”
He said he did not know who those officials were.
Mr Diamond said there was a concern that the high rates could be taken to mean that Barclays was having funding problems, which was not the case.
He said he did not view the conversation as an instruction to lower the rates.