Senator wants U.S. in oil price-fixing probe

Kevin McCoy | USA TODAY

U.S. public concern over a European probe into possible oil price manipulation escalated Friday as the head of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources urged the Justice Department to join the investigation.

The request from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., came after European Union investigators this week raided the offices of global energy giants BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Statoil. The anti-trust probe is examining whether the companies manipulated oil prices by making false reports to Platts, an energy industry data service owned by McGraw Hill Financial.

The companies have all said they are cooperating with investigators.

"Efforts to manipulate the European oil indices, if proven, may have already impacted U.S. consumers and businesses, because of the interrelationships among world oil markets and hedging practices," Wyden wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, who chairs the federal government's Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

"These effects on American business make it imperative that your task force investigate whether any firms ... may be using false information to manipulate oil prices here or abroad."

The Justice Department said it was reviewing Wyden's request.

The EU investigation focuses in part on the Platts "market-on-close" index, which is based on prices submitted by oil buyers and sellers in transactions shortly before the end of each trading day. The system's relatively opaque nature has raised concerns that energy firms could manipulate the index to drive up oil prices.

U.S. and overseas authorities have intensified scrutiny of numerous financial benchmarks amid an ongoing investigation into manipulation of Libor rates, the standard that underpins trillions of dollars of mortgages, loans and other financial instruments.

Three global banks, Swiss giant UBS, London-based Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, have admitted improper collusion in the Libor investigation and have collectively been fined more than $2.5 billion.