The Banksters fined

The European Commission has slapped record fines of 1.7 billion euros on eight major banks for manipulating lending rates that play a key role in the global economy. The EU fines marks the latest to be levied on banks and financial institutions for making profits or masking their problems by fraudulently rigging the rates that reflect the cost of lending money to each other.

The banks fined are Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, JPMorgan, Societe Generale, and RP Martin. Swiss bank UBS and Britain's Barclays bank both avoided their fines of 2.5 billion euros and 690 million respectively for playing a key role in alerting authorities to the existence of the cartel. This meant that while the bank was still issued the fine initially as a cartel participant, it received a 100 percent reduction. UBS was also issued a 100 percent reduction.

“What is shocking about the Libor and Euribor scandals is not only the manipulation of benchmarks, which is being tackled by financial regulators worldwide, but also the collusion between banks who are supposed to be competing with each other,” said Joaquín Almunia, European Commission Vice-President in charge of competition policy. “Today's decision sends a clear message that the Commission is determined to fight and sanction these cartels in the financial sector. Healthy competition and transparency are crucial for financial markets to work properly, at the service of the real economy rather than the interests of a few."