A former manager of Deutsche Bank receives a reward of almost 200 million dollars (around 170 million euros) from the US government for his involvement in uncovering the so-called Libor scandal. The man’s lawyer stated that his client had provided the relevant regulatory agencies in the United States and Great Britain with documents, receipts and other evidence on a large scale. This would have played a major role in revealing the machinations in 2012. The authorities eventually fined a number of international financial institutions totaling more than $ 9 billion. Deutsche Bank alone had to pay $ 2.5 billion.
Employees of the institutes began more than ten years ago to manipulate the London interbank interest rate (Libor), a daily rate that was used as the basis for trading in countless financial market products. This enabled them to take advantage of customers and other dealers and to reap billions in profits. As a consequence of the scandal, the regulatory authorities decided to replace the Libor with other reference interest rates.
It is quite common in the USA for tipsters who help uncover scandals to receive high rewards. Depending on the authority, grants of up to 30 percent of the fines imposed are possible. In fact, there has never been a bonus of almost $ 200 million, the previous record was $ 114 million. In the Libor case, however, the tipster even had to fight for the reward, because the CFTC commodity futures trading commission had initially rejected a payment with the argument that their coffers were empty. In addition, the British authorities were in charge of the case. After reviewing the case, the authorities decided to change it.