Barclays Bank to Pay - $160 Million - as Part of Non-Prosecution Agreement

A DOJ Press Release reports, Barclays Bank PLC Admits Misconduct Related to Submissions for the London Interbank Offered Rate and the Euro Interbank Offered Rate and Agrees to Pay $160 Million Penalty

Some highlights of the press release -

• "Barclays Bank PLC, a financial institution headquartered in London, has entered
  into an agreement with the Department of Justice to pay a $160 million penalty
  to resolve violations arising from Barclays’s submissions for the London
  InterBank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (EURIBOR),
  which are benchmark interest rates used in financial markets around the world..."
• "To the bank’s credit, Barclays also took a significant step toward accepting
  responsibility for its conduct by being the first institution to provide
  extensive and meaningful cooperation to the government."
• "Barclays’s cooperation has been extensive, in terms of the quality and type of
  information and assistance provided, and has been of substantial value in
  furthering the department’s ongoing criminal investigation." 
• "The agreement requires Barclays to continue cooperating with the department in
  its ongoing investigation."
• "As a result of Barclays’s admission of its misconduct, its extraordinary
  cooperation, its remediation efforts and certain mitigating and other factors,
  the department agreed not to prosecute Barclays for providing false LIBOR and
  EURIBOR contributions, provided that Barclays satisfies its ongoing obligations
  under the agreement for a period of two years.  The non-prosecution agreement
  applies only to Barclays and not to any employees or officers of Barclays or any
  other individuals."

Commentary - As a non-prosecution agreement it does not go through the courts and DOJ has the power to enforce or proceed should it believe there is a violation of the agreement. It also sounds like the white collar defense bar may have some new clients as the government has secured the cooperation of the company to go after individuals.

See also Jenna Greene, BLT Blog, Barclays Agrees to Pay $360M to Settle with CFTC, DOJ
over Interest Rate Manipulation

(esp)