Five staff axed by Barclays after Libor investigation

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, below, 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 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 after the scandal.