Neil Danziger, a former interest rate derivative trader, has been permanently banned from working in financial services and slapped with a £250,000 fine for what the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said was a “reckless disregard” for industry standards.
His fine is the seventh issued by the FCA to firms and people involved in the Libor rigging scandal.
The 42-year-old, who worked for RBS from 2002, “feels strongly” that he is being scapegoated and that the real truth behind the case is yet to come out, according to his lawyers.
Ben Rose, of the law firm Hickman & Rose, said: “Mr Danziger continues to dispute the FCA’s findings and feels strongly that he is being scapegoated for the systemic problems relating to Libor.
“However, the last five years have been incredibly challenging. He is emotionally exhausted and financially drained. He leaves it to others, better resourced, to press the FCA for answers, hopeful that one day the real truth will come out.”
FCA final notice
In a final notice published on Monday the FCA said Danziger “routinely” made requests to RBS’s primary Libor submitters attempting to benefit his own trading position and tried to benefit his own trading positions when acting as a substitute submitter between 2007 and 2010.
It also said he attempted to manipulate other bank’s Libor submissions during the three-year period.
The regulator accused Danziger of lacking integrity and said he was “knowingly concerned in RBS’s failure to observe proper standards of market conduct”, using a number of conversations with brokers and RBS colleagues as evidence.
However, Danziger has run out of the energy and cash to deal with the accusations, and will never work in finance again as a result of the ruling.
In his defence submitted to the FCA, Danziger said he had not understood that making requests to submitters and taking requests from derivatives traders when acting as a substitute submitter was improper.
Among other issues, he also claimed he had received no training on Libor submissions and that “he was placed in a position of inherent conflict” by the fact RBS encouraged him to share market information while acting as substitute submitter.
RBS was handed a £87.5m fine for manipulating Libor rates between 2006 and 2012.
Danziger also said the financial penalty would have been “unfair”, as other people involved, including those senior to him at RBS, continued to work in the industry.
However, Mark Steward, FCA director of enforcement and market oversight, said: “Market participants cannot turn a blind eye to what the community, through its laws and regulations, expects nor apply their own, lower standards. This substantial fine and ban should reinforce that message.”
