UBS Chairman Axel Weber is urging fellow leaders of some of the world's biggest financial institutions to settle government probes into their alleged manipulation of a benchmark that determines the price at which banks lend to each other.
Weber suggested a deal Thursday during a meeting with JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, Citigroup (NYSE:C) CEO Mike Corbat, HSBC (HBC) Chairman Douglas Flint and Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of Canada, who is expected to take over the Bank of England in July, Reuters reported.
Though the bankers, who were attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, discussed Weber's proposition they reportedly left without agreeing to adopt it.
A UBS spokeswoman did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Regulators in the U.S., U.K., Europe and Canada are investigating whether roughly a dozen of the world's biggest banks conspired to make the London interbank offered rate either artificially high or low over a roughly two-year period starting in 2007.
The banks also face lawsuits that accuse them of misleading investors and borrowers about the rates on loans, certificates of deposit, lines of credit and securities that tie to the Libor. The Federal Housing Finance Agency reportedly is exploring legal options in connection with the rate-setting, which may have cost Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac more than $3 billion.
In December, UBS agreed to pay $1.5 billion to resolve Libor-related investigations by regulators in the U.S., U.K. and Switzerland. Barclays (BCS) in June paid $450 million to settle charges by regulators in the U.S. and U.K. that the bank manipulated both Libor and the euro interbank offered rate.
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