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UBS was ordered to pay about US$1.5 billion to U.S., U.K. and Swiss regulators for trying to rig global interest rates, including the London interbank offered rate, over a six-year period. Regulators found that traders at the Zurich-based bank made more than 2,000 requests to its own rate submitters, traders at other banks and brokers to manipulate rate submissions through 2010.

Triple Barclays

The financial penalties are more than triple the 290 million-pound fine Barclays Plc agreed to pay in June in the first settlement of Libor-rigging allegations. Barclays Chief Executive Officer Robert Diamond and Chairman Marcus Agius resigned in the face of political outrage over the scandal. UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti joined the bank in April 2011, after the period covered during the rate-rigging investigations.

“UBS’s misconduct is, although similar in nature, considerably more serious than Barclays’ because it was more widespread within the firm,” the FSA said. “More individuals, including managers and senior managers, participated in or knew about the manipulation.”

UBS rose 1.5% to 15.48 francs at 12:14 p.m. in Swiss trading.

Libor, a benchmark for more than US$300 trillion of financial products worldwide, is derived from a survey of banks conducted each day on behalf of the British Bankers’ Association in London. Lenders are asked how much it would cost them to borrow from one another for 15 different periods, from overnight to one year, in currencies including dollars, euros, yen and francs.