EU Calls for Criminal Penalties on Interest-Rate Rigging

The European Union says manipulating a benchmark interest rate in London should be a criminal offense¹.

The EU called Wednesday for its 27 member states to set criminal penalties for rigging interest rates to affect the LIBOR [London Interbank Offered Rate], a key rate that is used worldwide to set borrowing costs on trillions of dollars of contracts, loans and mortgages held by businesses and consumers. The European Union did not say what the penalties should be, leaving that up to individual countries.

The EU acted following the recent admission by Britain's Barclays bank that it attempted to manipulate the rate between 2005 and 2009.  Barclays was fined $453 million by British and American regulators after admitting it submitted false information on its borrowing costs in an effort to keep the benchmark rate low.

Investigators² also are looking at the actions of several other banks, including Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase in the United States, in connection with the interest-rate rigging.

1 offense   

n.犯规，违法行为；冒犯，得罪

参考例句：

• I hope you will not take any offense at my words. 对我讲的话请别见怪。
• His words gave great offense to everybody present.他的发言冲犯了在场的所有人。

2 investigators   

n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This memo could be the smoking gun that investigators have been looking for. 这份备忘录可能是调查人员一直在寻找的证据。
• The team consisted of six investigators and two secretaries. 这个团队由六个调查人员和两个秘书组成。 来自《简明英汉词典》