Five staff sacked by Barclays following Libor-fixing scandal

Barclays yesterday said five employees had been sacked as a result of the Libor-fixing scandal which landed the bank with a £290m fine and cost its chairman and chief executive their jobs.

Rich Ricci, the chief executive of Barclays' corporate and investment banking division, told the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards that "a lot" of the individuals identified in its internal probe had left the bank, so it could not take action against them. He added that eight additional staff had also been disciplined.

The scandal over the setting of Libor – used to price loans and financial contracts – cost chief executive Bob Diamond and chairman Marcus Agius their jobs in the summer.

"We carried out a very thorough investigation, as you will have seen from the reports of the authorities, and we have subsequently held an internal review and disciplinary process of those individuals," Mr Ricci told a panel of MPs as part of the inquiry.

More than a dozen banks are also under investigation by authorities over the setting of Libor rates, but Barclays is the only one to have settled its case. Royal Bank of Scotland's chief executive, Stephen Hester, has also warned that the state-backed bank faces its own hefty fine running into hundreds of millions as a result of Libor abuses.

The Treasury said yesterday that oil prices and commodities could fall under new draft legislation to prevent future rigging in the wake of the scandal.

Launching a consultation on possible legislation to be included in the Financial Services Bill which is going through Parliament, Greg Clark, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said: "Recent events have illustrated that Libor might not be the only benchmark subject to attempted manipulation. We are consulting on whether further benchmarks should be brought within the scope of regulation."

The new legislation would bring Libor under the scope of City regulators and make its manipulation a criminal offence. The consultation seeks the views of industry and the public on legislation to implement the key recommendations of the Wheatley Review, which the Government accepted in full last month.