LON­DON-British pros­e­cu­tors said yes­ter­day they are ex­am­in­ing whether they can bring crim­i­nal charges on top of the mas­sive fines im­posed on Bar­clays bank for a fi­nan­cial mar­ket ma­nip­u­la­tion scan­dal. The an­nounce­ment fol­lowed hours af­ter Bar­clays' chair­man, Mar­cus Ag­ius, re­signed and ac­cept­ed ul­ti­mate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the mis­be­hav­iour be­tween 2005 and 2009 which cost the com­pa­ny US$453 mil­lion in fines by US and British agen­cies.

Britain's Se­ri­ous Fraud Of­fice (SFO) said it hopes to de­cide whether to pur­sue crim­i­nal charges with­in a month. "The SFO is aware of in­ves­ti­ga­tions in oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions and work­ing with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties," it said in a state­ment. It wasn't im­me­di­ate­ly clear whether the SFO was con­sid­er­ing charges against the com­pa­ny as well as in­di­vid­u­als. The US Jus­tice De­part­ment said last week that in­di­vid­u­als at Bar­clays could face pros­e­cu­tion but the com­pa­ny would not be­cause of its co-op­er­a­tion in re­veal­ing how the bank and in­di­vid­ual em­ploy­ees sub­mit­ted false da­ta on in­ter­bank bor­row­ing rates.

Ag­ius' de­par­ture boost­ed the bank's share price but al­so brought fresh de­mands that Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Bob Di­a­mond al­so ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and re­sign. "Every­body is ask­ing when are the oth­er se­nior peo­ple at the top of Bar­clays go­ing to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the things that hap­pened on their watch," Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Nick Clegg said. Ed Miliband, leader of the op­po­si­tion Labour Par­ty, al­so called for Di­a­mond to step down. "I want to see crim­i­nal sanc­tions against those who broke the law," he added. Bar­clays shares were 3.4 per cent high­er in mid­day trad­ing at 168.4 pence, hold­ing on to ear­li­er gains de­spite the SFO an­nounce­ment. Di­a­mond, giv­ing no hint that he was con­sid­er­ing res­ig­na­tion, sent a memo to bank staff say­ing that Bar­clays' own dis­ci­pli­nary process "will be com­plet­ed swift­ly now that reg­u­la­to­ry re­views are com­plete." Penal­ties could in­clude claw­ing back bonus­es and dis­missal, he said. "I am dis­ap­point­ed be­cause many of these be­hav­iours hap­pened on my watch. It is my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to make sure that it can­not hap­pen again," Di­a­mond said. Bar­clays is one of a num­ber of banks which reg­u­lar­ly sub­mit es­ti­mates of what it will cost them to bor­row from oth­er banks. These es­ti­mates feed in­to cal­cu­la­tion of the Lon­don in­ter­bank of­fered rate (LI­BOR) which is used to de­ter­mine pay­ments from a range of de­riv­a­tives con­tracts.

The Lon­don rate, and the re­lat­ed Eu­ro­pean in­ter­bank of­fered rate, are the bench­marks for over US$500 tril­lion in glob­al con­tracts, in­clud­ing loans and mort­gages. Bar­clays ad­mit­ted that it had sub­mit­ted low­er than ac­tu­al fig­ures on its in­ter­bank bor­row­ing dur­ing the cred­it cri­sis in 2007 and 2008. Sev­er­al oth­er glob­al banks are be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed in oth­er coun­tries for sim­i­lar ac­tions. "As chair­man, I am the ul­ti­mate guardian of the bank's rep­u­ta­tion," said Ag­ius, who has led Bar­clays' board since 2007. "Ac­cord­ing­ly, the buck stops with me and I must ac­knowl­edge re­spon­si­bil­i­ty by stand­ing aside." Ag­ius' po­si­tion was par­tic­u­lar­ly sen­si­tive as he was al­so chair­man of the British Bankers' As­so­ci­a­tion, the trade body that col­lects the banks' rate sub­mis­sions to cal­cu­late the LI­BOR. He re­signed from that post as well yes­ter­day. Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron, mean­while, an­nounced a par­lia­men­tary in­quiry in­to the cul­ture and stan­dards of the bank­ing in­dus­try, to re­port by the end of the year. "The British peo­ple want to see two things: they want to see bankers who act­ed im­prop­er­ly pun­ished, and see a bank­ing sys­tem the peo­ple can have faith in," Cameron said. Michael Rake, a se­nior in­de­pen­dent di­rec­tor of Bar­clays, has been ap­point­ed to lead an in-house re­view of the com­pa­ny's past prac­tices, pub­lish a re­port of its find­ings, and de­vel­op a new, manda­to­ry code of con­duct. Ag­ius will re­main as chair­man un­til a suc­ces­sor is ap­point­ed. (AP)