The Financial Conduct Authority announced that it had banned former LIBOR trader Paul White from performing any financial regulated activity and publicly censured him. The FCA found that Mr. White was "knowingly concerned" in RBS's breach of the principle requiring firms to observe proper standards of market conduct and that he lacked the requisite fitness and propriety required of a person responsible for benchmark submissions. Mr. White was the Japanese Yen and Swiss Franc LIBOR submitter at the Royal Bank of Scotland between March 8, 2007 and November 24, 2010. During that time Mr. White received requests from RBS JPY and CHF derivatives traders and external JPY derivatives traders requesting submissions that would benefit their trading positions and took those requests into account when submitting the RBS JPY and CHF LIBOR rates to the British Bankers Association (the former administrator of LIBOR). The FCA issued a warning notice to Mr. White in 2014 but its proceedings were suspended pending the Serious Fraud Office's criminal investigation into individuals who had formerly been employed at RBS. The SFO announced in early March this year that it was closing its FX LIBOR investigation on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to bring a prosecution.
View the FCA's Final Notice.
