Neil Danziger, a former interest rate derivatives trader at the Royal Bank of Scotland, will never work in finance again after he was found to have “reckless disregard” for the industry standards by attempting to manipulate the Japanese yen (JPY) Libor between 2007 and 2010.
Over the course of three years, Danziger “routinely” made requests to RBS’s primary Libor submitters attempting to benefit his own trading position according to the FCA, took his own trading positions into account when acting as a substitute submitter and attempted to manipulate other bank’s Libor submissions.
The FCA said Danziger “lacks integrity” and was “knowingly concerned in RBS’s failure to observe proper standards of market conduct”.
His £250,000 personal fine comes four years after RBS itself was hit with a £87.5m fine for its manipulation of LIBOR between 2006 and 2012.
He also entered into 28 so-called wash trades between September 2008 and August 2009, risk-free trades with no commercial reasoning which worked to facilitate payments to two firms which had offered him personal hospitality.
Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “Proper standards of market conduct reflect the interests of the whole community in the well-being of our financial markets.
“Mr Danziger’s reckless disregard of these standards has no place in the financial services industry. 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.”
An initial warning notice issued to Danziger in June 2014 had to be postponed owing to the criminal investigation into several RBS workers by the Serious Fraud Office.
Following the FCA’s announcement on Monday, Danziger’s lawyer Ben Rose, of Hickman & Rose, said he continued to dispute the findings of the regulator.
Danziger “feels strongly that he is being scapegoated for the systemic problems relating to Libor”, according to Rose.
The FCA has racked up an £426m in fines handed out to seven firms involved in the Libor scandal so far.
