US politicians are considering summoning Barclays' former boss Bob Diamond to Washington to answer questions about the Libor-fixing scandal, in a sign that the controversy is becoming an ever hotter issue in the US.
Two high[-]powered committees, the Senate Banking committee and the House Financial Services committee, are both believed to be considering calling Diamond to testify. The committees declined to comment, but sources close to them said they were in the early stages of gathering information and were almost certain to call the former Barclays chief executive after the summer recess. A spokesman for Bob Diamond declined to comment.
Senator Tim Johnson, chairman of the banking committee, said on Tuesday that his panel would quiz Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner on the scandal at hearings scheduled before the August break.
"I am concerned by the growing allegations of potential widespread manipulation of Libor and similar interbank rates by some financial firms," said Johnson.
The US justice department is already investigating the scandal, and several cities and state pension funds have launched legal action, claiming that their investments suffered as a result of the manipulation of Libor rates. » | Dominic Rushe in New York and Jill Treanor | Wednesday, July 11, 2012
