Libor fix?

At least 12 lawsuits alleging manipulation of Libor have been filed since April, and six different authorities – including the US Department of Justice – are investigating. But how would manipulation work in practice, and is there any evidence of it so far?

The banker is angry. He raises his voice, waves his hands in the air and – at one point – slaps the desk in front of him. “I know for a fact it wasn’t real – Libor wasn’t real in 2007 and 2008. I know for a fact that some banks were putting in artificially low rates. I still find it hard to believe someone would deliberately do that, but if they did, that person shouldn’t work in banking,” he says.

For something that sounds so mundane, Libor – a daily average of the borrowing rates for a panel