Bloomberg View: From UBS, the Lessons of 'Captain Caos'
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Just when it appeared global banks’ transgressions couldn’t get worse, UBS has broken new ground. In its $1.5 billion settlement with various countries, UBS admitted to thousands of instances of interest-rate manipulation, involving more than 100 employees and managers, in currencies including the yen, the pound, the Swiss franc, the U.S. dollar, and the euro. The actions affected the London interbank offered rate, the global benchmark that influences the value of hundreds of trillions of dollars in mortgages, corporate loans, and derivatives.
What sets UBS apart is not only the extent of the behavior but also the level of collusion with traders at other banks and the outright bribery of brokers who helped coordinate the manipulation.