Rigged exposes a cover-up at the highest level on both sides of the Atlantic, upending the official story of the biggest scandal since the global financial crisis. It picks up where The Big Short leaves off, as the dark clouds of the financial crisis gather. Banks’ health is judged by an interest rate called Libor (the London Interbank Offered Rate).
The higher the Libor, the worse off the bank; too high and it’s goodnight Vienna. Libor is heading skywards. To save themselves from collapse, nationalisation and loss of bonuses, banks instruct traders to manipulate Libor down – a criminal practice known as lowballing. Outraged, traders turn whistleblowers, alerting the authorities.
As Rigged reveals, their instructions come first from top bosses – then from central banks and governments. But when the scandal explodes into the news, prosecutors allow banks to cover up the evidence pointing to the top. Instead, they accuse 37 traders of another kind of interest rate ‘rigging’ that no one had seen as a crime. In nine trials from 2015 to 2019, nineteen are convicted and sentenced. Rigged exclusively shows why all the defendants are innocent, and how any real culprits go unpunished.
How could this happen? Turns out, it’s not just the market that’s rigged. It’s the entire system.
About the Author :
ANDY VERITY is the award-winning economics correspondent for BBC News, covering finance and business on the BBC radio and TV bulletins as well as reporting for BBC's Panorama, Newsnight and BBC Radio 4’s investigative strand, File on Four. He has led the media in exposing the true story behind the scandal of interest rate rigging, including a Panorama film revealing the Bank of England’s role in it and The Lowball Tapes a 2022 podcast for BBC Radio 4 shortlisted for two awards. This is his first book.
Review :
‘One of the most powerful and shocking stories I've ever read - a real blood-boiler. Andy Verity, one of the BBC's top financial reporters, exposes with shining clarity one of the greatest scandals of modern times... in a modern-day version of the Salem witch trials, the financial and political establishment in Britain and America worked together to ruin the lives of 37 low-level City traders. They were sentenced to huge jail terms for crimes which were at best minor, and may never have committed at all. Meanwhile, famous and powerful figures in the City and Whitehall who seem to have committed far worse offences, escaped unscathed. This book shows the Establishment in Britain and the US at its very worst. It has totally destroyed my faith in British and American justice.’
‘If you’ve ever suspected the banking system of operating in someone else’s interest than yours, you’re right. It is a world of clever, amoral young people endlessly searching for ways to bend the rules. We badly need men in white hats to control them. Verity mercilessly demonstrates we ain’t got ‘em. Andy Verity is a reporter’s reporter. If only there were more like him.’
‘Andy has always been an uncompromising journalist, and he's fought to tell a dystopian tale of a lowballing scandal at the top of financial society. I suspect reading the details will be eye popping.’
‘A brilliant and compelling account of a huge establishment cover-up. The stories of low-level traders who found themselves expendable are brutal and heart-rending. I was prepared to hear that the big beasts of the banking world protected themselves at the expense of those further down the food chain, I was less prepared for the revelations that official UK institutions appeared to contribute to the miscarriages of justice Verity brings to life.’
‘A truly shocking story of collusion, conspiracy and cover-up at the heart of our financial establishment that have led to grave miscarriages of justice. The book surely provides the basis for a renewed Parliamentary inquiry.’
‘This book is a must-read for investors, economists and bankers - and all those wary of global 'markets' in money or commodities. It is the story of a judicial system that punished whistle-blowers not perpetrators. Above all, it's the story of how a rigorous investigative journalist, some brave whistle-blowers and the US courts, cracked open a closed and corrupt circuit of London bankers.’
‘The book has strong evidence that central banks not only knew about this rigging, they encouraged it.’
