LIBOR Investigation: Investor Trust At Stake

Submitted by Joao Peixe via OilPrice.com, After the Libor rigging scandal in 2012, authorities have sharpened their act, deeply scrutinizing company financial records, and implementing stricter regulations. This has led to a new investigation which has led European authorities to raid the offices of Shell, BP, and Statoil, in what is suspected to be one of the largest international actions since Libor.

LONDON — Oil companies will face the full force of the law if they manipulated prices, Britain’s energy minister said on Wednesday as a rating agency warned of massive fines if a European Commission’s probe into oil pricing found any wrongdoing. Oil firm Eni said the European Commission had asked it to provide information, although it was not being probed.

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LONDON/OSLO — European authorities have raided offices of oil majors Shell, BP and Statoil as part of a probe into suspected manipulation of oil prices, one of the biggest cross-border actions since the Libor rigging scandal. Authorities have sharply raised scrutiny of financial benchmarks around the world since slapping large fines on some of the world’s biggest banks for rigging two interest rate benchmarks — Libor and Euribor.

LONDON — Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has made the first arrests as part of a global investigation into the manipulation of interbank lending rates. The SFO said on Tuesday three British men, aged 33, 41 and 47, had been taken to a London police station for interviews. They had all been living in Britain. Sources had said that regulators and prosecutors in the U.S. and Europe were closing in on individual traders they suspected of colluding to rig key benchmark lending rates such as Libor (London interbank offered rate) and its euro cousin Euribor.