Barclays is emerging as a key focus of the US and UK regulatory probe into alleged rigging of benchmark interbank lending rates that are the reference point for $350,000bn in financial products, people familiar with the investigation said.
Investigators are probing whether communications between the bank’s traders and its treasury arm, which helps set the daily London interbank offered rate, or Libor, violated “Chinese wall” rules that prevent information-sharing between different parts of the bank.
Regulators require banks to put controls in place to prevent various arms of their business from profiting improperly from the flow of confidential information that other parts receive.