Bank of England Oversight Committee appoints leading Queen’s Counsel to head independent investigation
Following this week’s series of questions which were posed to Bank of England Governor Mark Carney in an attempt by British government officials to ascertain as to whether any possible manipulation of FX benchmarks by banks could have been known to the Bank of England, the Bank of England Oversight Committee has enlisted Lord Grabiner to lead the investigation, picking up the baton from City of London financial law firm Travers Smith.
Bank of England Chair of Court Sir David Lees, part of whose remit is to preside over the Oversight Committee, has requested that Lord Grabiner should assess whether any bank officials were involved in the manipulation of FX markets within its jurisdiction between 2005 and 2013.
Travers Smith are scheduled to work alongside Lord Grabiner, a commercial lawyer himself, as well as one of Britain’s most revered Queen’s Counsel peers.
Since its inauguration into the FX manipulation probe last week, the law firm has concentrated its efforts on beginning a full examination of bank information, telephone calls and analysis fo data that could bring forth a result relating to the allegations leveled against the Bank of England and the notion that it may be party to the rate fixing scandal.
Lord Grabiner will also establish whether any staff at the Bank of England were involved in any divulgence of confidential client information between bank, or indeed had been aware of the practice, despite Mr. Carney’s vehement denial.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the Oversight Committee believes that it is essential that matters raised by the Bank’s initial review should be thoroughly and independently examined and that the Bank’s executive should act on any lessons learned,” he continued.
Due to the very nature of such an investigation across so many large institutions on an international scale, it is likely that Lord Grabiner’s investigations will be a long, drawn-out affair.
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