The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined former RBS trader Neil Danziger £250,000 (€281,700) and banned him from life from working in any regulated financial activity for his role in the Libor rigging scandal.
The scandal saw a number of banks fined for rigging the inter-bank lending rate a decade ago.
Danziger “routinely” made requests to RBS’s primary submitters intending to benefit the trading positions for which he and other derivatives traders were responsible.
He also entered into 28 so-called “wash trades” – risk free trades with the same party in pairs that cancelled each other out and for which there was no legitimate commercial rationale.
Their purpose was to make or facilitate brokerage payments to two firms of brokers in recognition of his receipt of personal hospitality, the FCA said.
The FCA found that Danziger was knowingly concerned in RBS’s failure to observe proper standards of market conduct and determined that he is not a “fit and proper person” because he acted recklessly and lacks integrity.
Mark Steward executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA said: “Proper standards of market conduct reflect the interests of the whole community in the well-being of our financial markets. Mr Danziger’s reckless disregard of these standards has no place in the financial services industry.”
Danziger’s lawyer, Ben Rose of Hickman & Rose, said: “Mr Danziger continues to dispute the FCA’s findings and feels strongly that he is being scapegoated for the systemic problems relating to Libor.”
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