“Brussels-based lobby group Finance Watch has responded to the European Commission’s consultation on the use benchmarks for financial contracts, insisting self-regulation “is not an option”.

Finance Watch, formed in April 2011 in a bid to better represent the public in financial policy matters, favoured increased regulation for the oversight and management of financial benchmarks.

The European Commission’s consultation was held in light of the LIBOR scandal, where a number of investment banks were accused of rigging the widely-used benchmark between 2005 and 2007 to benefit their own derivatives positions and misrepresent the health of the interbank lending market. Barclays was fined over US$450 million in June by US and UK regulators for the manipulation, with punitive action for some of the other LIBOR-setting banks expected in due course.”

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