TWO former senior employees of UOB Kay Hian Private Limited (UOBKH) were charged on Wednesday for allegedly lying to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in relation to reports on a then Catalist aspirant. Lan Kang Ming, 38, and Wee Toon Lee, 34, each face three charges of providing MAS with false information in October 2018 in relation to due diligence reports on an unidentified company applying to list on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange. MAS said in a media statement on Wednesday that it was performing an onsite inspection of UOBKH between June and August 2018, to assess the latter's controls, policies and procedures in relation to its role as an issue manager for Initial Public Offering (IPOs). During the examination, Lan and Wee were said to have provided different versions of a due diligence report relating to background checks on a company applying to be listed on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange. UOBKH had acted as the issue manager
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The scandal over Barclays’ efforts to rig interbank rates has put the relationship between big banks and financial regulators under the microscope
New York Times
05 July 2012
When Barclays bank manipulated key interest rates to bolster profits during the 2008 financial crisis, senior executives said they were following a common practice that regulators implicitly approved, according to documents released by the bank and authorities.
But the illicit acts, which led to a US$450 million sanction for the bank, claimed its biggest victims on Tuesday: Robert Diamond, the British bank’s chief executive, and chief operating officer Jerry del Missier.
Even as they resigned, Barclays published documents indicating that some executives thought they were responding to an implied directive from the Bank of England, Britain’s central bank.
Barclays said in its defence that it not only advised the Bank of England and other British authorities about interest-rate discrepancies across Wall Street, but also the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Wall Street firms weren’t told to stop the practice, Barclays said.
The disclosures put a spotlight on the interaction between regulators and big banks over the setting of interest rates during the financial crisis, raising questions about what authorities knew about the practice.
Investigators cast some doubt on Barclays’ view. The bank never explicitly told regulators that it was reporting false interest rates that amounted to manipulation, according to regulatory documents.
“Barclays is just one example of why we need a culture shift in the financial world - and that means all the way to the top,” said Bart Chilton, a member of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the American regulator leading the investigation.
After the Barclays settlement, American and British authorities are now shifting their focus to examine a pattern of wrongdoing on Wall Street, pursuing action against more than 10 big banks scattered across the globe, including UBS, JPMorgan and Citigroup. Authorities suspect that big banks reported false rates throughout the crisis to squeeze out extra trading profits and mask their true financial health.
The Barclays case is the first blow in a series of potential actions against the banks that help set the London interbank offered rate (Libor), which is used to help determine the borrowing costs for myriad financial products, including student loans, mortgages and credit cards. Libor and the other interbank rates are published daily, based on surveys from banks about the rates at which they can borrow money in the financial markets.
Amid the Barclays fallout, other British banks are now scrambling to settle with authorities, according to people familiar with the matter. American regulators have set their sights on a large European institution, another person said.
The commission is building several cases in piecemeal fashion, choosing at this point to mount evidence against each bank rather than unveil a single global settlement, according to the sources. The next case is not expected to be imminent.
The agency pursued Barclays first, viewing it as a case study in Libor manipulation. The enforcement action hit all the flash points in the broad investigation, exposing a multiyear scheme touching nearly every layer of management and business practices across three continents.
Regulators accused the bank of lowering its Libor submissions to deflect concerns about its high borrowing costs amid the crisis. Diamond’s top deputies sought rates in line with rival banks and directed employees not to put your “head above the parapet”, according to regulatory filings.
Barclays was also accused of “aiding attempts by other banks to manipulate” interest rates, further underscoring the clubby nature of Wall Street. In some cases, bank employees co-ordinated with former colleagues who worked at rival firms as a way to manipulate the rates, according to the regulatory documents.
In building the case, regulators benefited from a series of brazen e-mails that outlined the scope of the scheme. One trader called a colleague a “superstar” for furthering the illicit actions. Another employee even acknowledged that the bank was submitting “patently false” rate information.
For its part, Barclays initially resisted scrutiny from the trading commission. The commission, Barclays argued, was overstepping its authority when it opened an investigation in early 2008. When that argument failed, Barclays switched gears, claiming it had briefed government officials. Over the course of a year, the bank discussed its Libor submissions 13 times with the British regulator, the Financial Services Authority, and 12 times with the Federal Reserve, according to documents Barclays made public on Tuesday ahead of Diamond’s testimony.