The breadth of the scandal about the manipulation of benchmarks, such as LIBOR and EURIBOR, has pushed the European Commission to yesterday suggest amending its proposals of 20 October 2011 which revises EU legislation on market abuse, including criminal sanctions, currently under discussion in the European Parliament and Council.
Liberal Democrat Euro MP Sharon Bowles Chair of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, welcomed the thrust of the Commission’s proposal to outlaw manipulations of benchmarks, punishable as criminal offence, explaining:
“Manipulation of LIBOR and other similar benchmarks is a seismic event in financial markets, which affects the pricing of many other financial instruments. Not only do we need to ensure the strongest punishments for such market abuse, we will need to examine how benchmarks are produced and if possible move to a system based on actual transactions rather than estimates.” Continue reading “Bowles: Split up banks in wake of Libor Scandal” »
Five years from the European Parliament’s report into alleged European collusion with CIA ‘extraordinary rendition’ (kidnap and secret illegal detention) developed as part of Bush “war on terror”, the Civil Liberties committee voted today on an update report. This addresses the extent to which Member States, Council and Commission have complied with their obligations to carry out full inquiries to ascertain and secure accountability for complicity in human rights abuses
