“The story is quite shocking and brings us back to the banking industry’s most irresponsible behavior of the past!”– Joaquin Almunia, Vice-President of the European Commission, and Commissioner responsible for competition

14 July 2012, a top European Union official has admitted that the recent LIBOR scandal involving top British & U.S. banks, also involves top Japaneses and European banks, and government officials knew about it.

LIBOR, or London Interbank Offered Rate, is an interest rate charged to other banks, and is done on behalf of the British Bankers’ Association in London, England, U.K.

As of 2008 there were 60 international banks, including U.S. banks, beholden to the LIBOR.

Japan has their own version called TIBOR (Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate). The European Union has their version called EURIBOR (Euro Interbank Offered Rate).

EURIBOR is based in Belgium and involves at least 43 international banks.

EU Vice President, Joaquin Almunia, says his investigation into international interest rate fixing, as well as currency value fixing, began last year. It’s starting to look like the Too Big to Fails formed illegal cartels to favor a few and screw over the rest of us: “The alleged rate rigging is a major competition concern. This is why we started investigating a number of banks last year for their possible concerted manipulation of (interest rate) benchmarks such as LIBOR, EURIBOR and TIBOR, the Tokyo rate, for several currencies. The investigations have top priority because this sort of collusion can seriously harm competition worldwide and on our continent, in particular.”

In Japan the TIBOR scandal is making waves.  On 06 July 2012, it was revealed that in June the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) pulled out of TIBOR.  RBS is one of the banks under investigation.

UBS and Citigroup also withdrew from TIBOR earlier this year. They are also suspects.  As of 06 July there were three non-Japanese banks still involved with TIBOR; JP Morgan, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank.

On 13 July, it was reported in the Japanese news media that the Japanese Bankers Association began investigating how interest rates and currency manipulations are arrived at by TIBOR.

It was also revealed that Japan’s Financial Services Agency fined Citigroup and UBS for such manipulations, last year!  Japanese officials are saying that there’s no proof (so far) that Japanese banks were directly involved in illegal activities.

However, a top Japanese bank has put their London, U.K., employees on notice.  Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ has essentially put its two currency traders in London under house arrest!  The reason is that they are suspected of involvement in the British based LIBOR scandal.

Since last year, the number of Too Big to Fail banks being investigated has grown to several dozen! The scandal involves banks in North America, Europe and Japan (the regional members of the Trilateral Commission).

Check my blog for other LIBOR reports.