Bob Diamond indicated that he has no intention of giving up his Barclays payoff. At PMQs David Cameron suggested that Diamond, who is in line to receive up to £22m, should give it up. But, when was asked about this during the Treasury committee hearing, Diamond repeatedly declined invitaions to say he would forgo the money. Instead he said this was a matter for the Barclays board.
When I read the emails from those traders I got physically ill. It's reprehensible behaviour.
He said that just 14 traders were to blame and that they had tainted the reputation of the 140,000 people who work for Barclays. He repeatedly stressed his "love" for the bank and its pride in what it has done.
He said that he only found out the full extent of the Libor-rigging scandal last month.
He said that he did not know about the Libor-rigging at his bank and that he did not feel personally to blame. "I don't feel personally culpable but what I do feel is a strong sense of responsibility, a very strong sense that when we find mistakes, we recognise them, we are open about them," he said. When MPs suggested that he was responsible for bringing a cavalier, investment banking culture into the bank, he rejected that.
He said that he did not know the identity of the Whitehall sources who prompted the Bank of England's Paul Tucker to call him in 2008 expressing concern about the Barclays' high Libor figures. But he did suggest Tucker might have been talking about ministers. Asked who the sources were, he said he did not want to speculate, but at one point he talked about "senior people in government". Diamond said Tucker was calling him because he wanted to warn Barclays that, if "Whitehall" thought Barclays was having probelm borrowing money (which Diamond says it wasn't), the government would want to nationalise it.
Whitehall was told Barclays had the highest Libor. They would think we couldn't fund and must nationalise the bank.
He said that Barclays was being stigmatised because it was the first bank to settle with the regulators investigating Libor rigging. But other banks might think twice about cooperating with the authorities in view of the way the reputation of Barclays has suffered, he said.
I worry that the impact of being first ... the reaction to the one firm that's out first doesn't create great incentives for others to come forward.
He said he did not know if the Bank of England or the Financial Services Authority told Marcus Agius, the Barclays chairman, that Diamond should resign. Agius could tell the committee himself when he gave evidence next week, Diamond said.
He suggested that regulators like the Financial Services Authority should have investigated the Libor-rigging scandal earlier. Barclays had raised concerns with the regulators about other banks being involved, he said. "There was an issue out there and it should have been dealt with."
George Osborne has claimed that Labour ministers were "clearly involved" in the Barclays Libor-rigging scandal. He was referring to the conversation between Diamond and Tucker, and the suggestion that unnamed Whitehall figures were asking why Barclays' Libor rates were so high.
As for the role of the Labour government and the people around Gordon Brown - well I think there are questions to be asked of them. They were clearly involved and we just haven't heard the full facts, I don't think, of who knew what when.
Labour's Chris Leslie said: "This is desperate stuff from George Osborne - lashing out in a frenzied way that demeans the office of the chancellor of the exchequer."
I've taken some of the quotes from PoliticsHome.
That's it from me. Thanks for the comments.
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