Two Ways the House Libor Hearings Could Play Out
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., wants to investigate. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., wants to talk about reforms. How Congress will choose to deal with the unfolding Libor manipulation scandal is unclear - at least for now - but the two members of the House Financial Services Committee laid out diverging, but not mutually exclusive, paths forward on Wednesday.
Frank made clear that he's looking for answers as to how Barclays and possibly other banks manipulated the global benchmark rate during the financial crisis. His focus will be on finding out what, exactly, U.S. regulators knew and whether they acted appropriately on that information. Asked by the Alley what he hoped to discover in any upcoming Libor hearings, Frank replied, "What the regulators knew, what they didn't know, what the remedies should be, [and] how many other banks are involved."
Congress' role, he said, should be conducting a "thorough investigation" of what happened during the crisis.
Maloney, however, would rather focus on solutions. "As a legislator I'm looking forward," Maloney told the Alley. "What do we do to make sure this doesn't happen again?"
The Democratic representative said she hoped to use upcoming hearings to examine alternatives to Libor.
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