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Rabobank Traders Accused of LIBOR Manipulation
Two former Coöperatieve Centrale Raiffeisen-Boerenleenbank B.A. (Rabobank) derivative traders have been charged in a superseding indictment for their alleged roles in a scheme to manipulate the U.S. Dollar (USD) and Yen London InterBank Offered Rate (LIBOR), a benchmark interest rate to which trillions of dollars in interest rate contracts were tied, the Justice Department announced today.
Anthony Allen, 43, of Hertsfordshire, England, and Anthony Conti, 45, of Essex, England, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud and with substantive counts of wire fraud for their participation in a scheme to manipulate the USD and Yen LIBOR rate in a manner that benefitted their own or Rabobank’s financial positions in derivatives that were linked to those benchmarks.
The indictment also charges Tetsuya Motomura, 42, of Tokyo, Japan, and Paul Thompson, 48, of Dalkeith, Australia, who were charged in a prior indictment with Paul Robson, a former Rabobank LIBOR submitter. In addition to adding as defendants Allen and Conti, the superseding indictment alleges a broader conspiracy to manipulate both the USD LIBOR and the Yen LIBOR.
According to the superseding indictment, at the time relevant to the charges, LIBOR was an average interest rate, calculated based on submissions from leading banks around the world, reflecting the rates those banks believed they would be charged if borrowing from other banks. LIBOR was published by the British Bankers’ Association (BBA), a trade association based in London.
Earlier this year, Robson and Takayuki Yagami, a former Rabobank derivatives trader, each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in connection with their roles in the scheme. The indictment alleges that the traders worked together to influence the USD LIBOR and Yen LIBOR rates to gain an illegal advantage in the market.
“Today, we have charged two more members of the financial industry with influencing Dollar LIBOR and Yen LIBOR to gain an illegal advantage in the market, unfairly benefitting their own trading positions in financial derivatives,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell. “LIBOR is a key benchmark interest rate that is relied upon to be free of bias and self-dealing, but the conduct of these traders was as galling as it was greedy. Today’s charges are just the latest installment in the Justice Department’s industry-wide investigation of financial institutions and individuals who manipulated global financial rates.”
Assistant Director in Charge Andrew G. McCabe of the FBI’s Washington Field Office said, “With today’s indictments the FBI’s investigation into Rabobank’s manipulation of LIBOR benchmark rates expands in scope to include the U.S. Dollar. I would like to thank the special agents, forensic accountants, and analysts, as well as the prosecutors who have worked to identify and stop those who hide behind complex corporate and securities fraud schemes.”
Key Facts
- State: Federal
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release ↗
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