By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS, March 7 (Reuters) - Probes into banks and brokerssuspected of fixing benchmark Libor and Euribor interest ratesare at an advanced stage, a senior EU antitrust official said onThursday, accelerating the investigation process.
Up until now banking sources have said the process was at apreliminary stage and could take quite some time before theCommission even brings charges.
The European Commission has been looking into illegalmanipulation of the two rates, including those for the Japaneseyen and the Swiss franc, for the last 18 months, but has yet totake any action unlike financial regulators.
Such rates are used as references for hundreds of trillionsof dollars' worth of financial contracts, ranging from creditcards to complicated derivatives transactions.
"These cases are in an advanced stage," Eric vanGinderachter, director of cartels at the Commission, told an IBCLegal conference. He did not provide details.
Last month, sources told Reuters that EU antitrust chiefJoaquin Almunia is pushing to issue decisions on the cases bythe end of the year. Banks found guilty of breaching EU finescould face fines up to 10 percent of their global revenues.
U.S. and UK regulators have fined three banks to date - RBS, Britain's Barclays and Switzerland's UBS - a total of $2.6 billion for allowing traders to gameLibor interbank rates in a global scam.
Barclays, HSBC, RBS and SocGen have saidthey are cooperating with EU regulators. Dutch group Rabobank said EU regulators have asked for information.
Watchdogs in Japan, Canada, Italy, Germany and theNetherlands are also scrutinising the issue.
Barclays (BARC)
HSBC Holdings (HSBA)
