Libor Lies Revealed in Rigging of $300 Trillion Benchmark

The benchmark rate for more than $300 trillion of contracts was based on honesty. New evidence in banking's biggest scandal shows traders took it as a license to cheat. Graphic: Bloomberg Markets
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Every morning, from his desk by the bathroom at the far end of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc’s trading floor overlooking London’s Liverpool Street station, Paul White punched a series of numbers into his computer.

White, who had joined RBS in 1984, was one of the employees responsible for the firm’s submissions for the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, the global benchmark for more than $300 trillion of contracts from mortgages and student loans to interest-rate swaps. Behind him sat Neil Danziger, a derivatives trader who had worked at the bank since 2002.