LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Lloyds Banking Group (L:LLOY) has agreed to pay fines totaling $370 million to U.S. and British authorities investigating its part in a global interest rate rigging scandal and manipulating fees for a government lending scheme.
The settlement is the seventh joint penalty handed out by U.S. and British regulators in connection with the attempted manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and other similar benchmarks, which are used to price around $450 trillion of financial products worldwide.
Lloyds' settlement follows British rivals Barclays (L:BARC) and Royal Bank of Scotland (L:RBS), which agreed to pay fines of $453 million and $612 million respectively in 2012 and 2013.
The penalties comprise a fine of 105 million pounds ($178 million) by Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, $105 million by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and an $86 million fine by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The FCA said the total UK fine of 105 million pounds include 70 million pounds for attempting to manipulate fees payable to the Bank of England for the firm's participation in the special liquidity scheme, a taxpayer backed government scheme to support British banks during the financial crisis.
"The firms were a significant beneficiary of financial assistance from the Bank of England through the SLS. Colluding to benefit the firms at the expense, ultimately, of the UK taxpayer was unacceptable," said FCA director of enforcement, Tracey McDermott
($1 = 0.5884 British Pounds)
(Reporting by Matt Scuffham and Huw Jones; Editing by Clare Hutchison)