巴克莱多位高管因利率操纵丑闻辞职

A scandal over interest-rate manipulation reached the upper echelons of British banking and government, as the chief executive of Barclays BARC.LN -0.80% PLC resigned and the bank released documents that threaten to drag Bank of England and U.K. government officials into the affair.

在巴克莱集团(Barclays PLC)首席执行长(CEO)辞职以及该行公布可能将英国央行(Bank of England)和英国政府官员拖入丑闻的有关文件之后，英国银行业和政府高层也牵涉进了巴克莱操纵利率的丑闻。

Robert Diamond, the American CEO of Barclays, stepped down from his post a day after the bank's chairman, Marcus Agius, resigned. A top deputy to Mr. Diamond, Chief Operating Officer Jerry del Missier, also stepped down.

在巴克莱董事长魏万基(Marcus Agius)辞职一天后，巴克莱美籍CEO博达文(Robert Diamond)也相继辞职。博达文的主要副手、首席运营长德尔米西耶(Jerry del Missier)已经辞职。

Mr. Agius will stay on temporarily to run the bank and help find a new chairman and a CEO. Mr. Diamond's resignation was effective immediately.

魏万基将暂时留任，一面负责巴克莱的运营一面帮助该行物色新的董事长和CEO。博达文的辞呈已即刻生效。

The housecleaning at one of Europe's largest banks came less than a week after it reached a $453 million settlement with U.S. and U.K. regulators investigating manipulation of an important benchmark interest rate.

作为欧洲最大银行之一，巴克莱此次高层人事震荡前不到一周，该行刚刚同美英两国的监管机构达成金额高达4.53亿美元的和解。两国监管机构此前对巴克莱操纵一种重要基准利率展开了调查。

Even as Barclays's leadership exited, the scandal took a turn that could pit the bank against officials at the Bank of England and U.K. Treasury in the quest to assign blame in the matter. Barclays released a document suggesting that an official from the Bank of England, under pressure from the U.K. government in 2010, may have encouraged the bank to lower its submission for calculating the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.

就在巴克莱的高层领导纷纷辞职的同时，这起丑闻风向突变，可能导致巴克莱同英国央行和英国财政部的官员为了推卸责任而分庭抗礼。巴克莱公布的一份文件显示，2010年在英国政府的施压下，英国央行一名官员可能曾鼓励巴克莱降低用来计算伦敦银行间同业拆借利率(Libor)的借款利率报价。

The news reverberated through the City of London and set up what is expected to be a widely watched showdown Wednesday when Mr. Diamond appears before a Parliamentary hearing into the matter.

周三，在博达文出席英国议会就此事举行的一场听证会后，上述消息在伦敦金融城造成了很大反响，同时令这场事件变为预计将受到广泛关注的最终摊派。

Barclays's settlement with regulators stemmed from the bank's attempt to disguise the high cost of its own funding and to pad the profits of certain traders. The probe has been under way for several years and involves a handful of other global banks. Libor is used to set interest rates on an estimated $800 trillion of borrowings and derivatives.

巴克莱之所以要和监管机构达成和解是因为，该行曾试图掩盖其自有资金带来的高成本以及虚增某些交易员创造的利润的行为。这项调查已经进行了多年，其中涉及少数几家其它全球性银行。Libor是估计达800万亿美元的借款和衍生品确定利率的基矗

Included in one of the documents released by Barclays in advance of Wednesday's hearing are Mr. Diamond's Oct. 29, 2010, notes of a call between himself and Paul Tucker, at the time the Bank of England's executive director for markets. The notes say the men discussed Barclays's relatively high submissions of the bank's borrowing rate, one figure used to calculate Libor.

巴克莱在周三听证会前公布的这批文件包括博达文保存的2010年10月29日本人和时任英国央行主管市场的执行董事塔克(Paul Tucker)之间的通话记录。记录显示，两人曾谈及巴克莱对借款利率的报价相对较高一事。这一报价会被用来计算Libor。

At the height of the financial crisis, Libor was closely watched as a barometer of U.K. banks' health. It is calculated by an average of banks' own borrowing rates. The higher a bank's rate, the riskier it is considered to be, so an overall high Libor would have suggested the sector was having trouble accessing cash.

在金融危机愈演愈烈之际，Libor曾因被视作反映英国银行业健康水平的晴雨表而受到市场密切关注。Libor是通过对各家银行同业借款利率报价取平均数计算出来的。某家银行报出的借款利率越高，表明该银行的风险越大。因此当Libor总体上处于高位时表明银行业在筹集现金方面存在困难。

By Mr. Diamond's account, Mr. Tucker told him that he had 'received calls from a number of senior figures within Whitehall to question why Barclays was always toward the top end of the Libor pricing.'

按照博达文的描述，塔克对他说，他接到了英国政府多位高级官员的电话，这些人对巴克莱在报价时总是接近Libor定价区间上限的原因提出质疑。

After Mr. Diamond explained the bank's pricing, he says Mr. Tucker reiterated that the calls he was receiving from the government were 'senior' and added that 'while [Mr. Tucker] was certain that we did not need advice, that it did not always need to be the case that we appeared as high as we have recently.'

在博达文解释了巴克莱的报价机制之后，他说塔克再次向他说明，来电询问的都是政府高官。并说虽然塔克确信巴克莱不需要相关建议，但塔克暗示说巴克莱没有必要像近来那样将报价定得那么高。

According to the Barclays documents made public on Tuesday, Mr. Diamond didn't believe he received an instruction from Mr. Tucker. However Mr. del Missier, then president of Barclays's investment bank, concluded that an instruction had been passed down from the Bank of England not to keep Barclays's rate as high.

巴克莱周二公布的这批文件显示，博达文认为自己并没有收到塔克的指示，但时任巴克莱投资银行部主管的德尔米西耶却认为英国央行下达了指示，要求巴克莱不要将报价定得过高。

The U.K.'s Financial Services Authority investigated Mr. del Missier in relation to these events and closed the investigation without taking any enforcement action, according to Barclays.

巴克莱说，英国金融服务管理局(Financial Services Authority)曾就德尔米西耶与这些事件的关系展开调查。调查结束后该机构没有采取任何法律行动。

A spokesperson for the Bank of England declined to comment. Mr. Tucker─now the BOE's deputy governor of financial stability and seen as a possible successor to bank Gov. Mervyn King─hasn't been implicated by authorities in the investigation.

英国央行一位发言人不予置评。英国央行负责金融稳定事务的副行长塔克在调查中并未受到牵连。外界认为，塔克可能成为现任英国央行行长金(Mervyn King)的继任者。

A U.K. government spokesman didn't have an immediate response. The current Conservative-led government took power in 2010; in 2010, the now-opposition Labour Party was in power, led by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown. A Labour Party spokesman said Tuesday that a full independent inquiry was needed to get all the facts.

英国政府发言人没有立即做出反应。保守党领导的现任政府是在2010年上台的。现在作为反对党的工党在2010年时是执政党，由时任英国首相的布朗(Gordon Brown)领导。工党发言人周二表示，想要弄清所有事实，必须展开一次全面的独立调查。