3 Rabobank ex-traders charged with manipulation of yen Libor

Three former traders at Dutch lender Rabobank were criminally charged on Monday with manipulating the yen Libor benchmark interest rate, the US Department of Justice said.

Two former traders of Japanese yen derivatives and a third trader responsible for setting the bank’s yen London interbank offered rate were accused of submitting fraudulent rates to benefit their trading positions, the department said.

In October, Rabobank paid US$1 billion to resolve US and European probes into rate-rigging allegations, making it the fifth bank punished in the scandal that has swept the industry.

A federal judge in New York signed a criminal complaint charging Paul Robson, a senior trader in London; Paul Thompson, who ran a trading desk in Singapore; and Tetsuya Motomura, a senior trader and supervisor on the bank’s Tokyo desk, the department said. Charges included wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, it said.

The three men charged could not be immediately reached for comment.

The Libor rates that oil the wheels of global finance are an average rate at which a panel of banks say they could borrow money. The manipulation of related benchmarks has resulted in US$3.7 billion in fines to date.