Diamond admits he only knew scale of Libor fixing a month ago

Bob Diamond the former chief executive at Barclays who resigned on Monday over the Libor interbank fixing scandal has appeared before a Treasury Select Committee (TSC) this afternoon.

Mr Diamond did not say whether he had been pressurised to resign or admit to any knowledge of a phone call from regulators to Marcus Agius on Monday evening advising Mr Agius that Mr Diamond must resign.

Mr Diamond called the behavior of the 14 traders found guilty of manipulating the Libor rate to boost their own trading positions “reprehensible” but insisted that this was a different issue to that of Barclays overall submission of Libor rates.

In a TSC hearing that provided few new revelations, Mr Diamond did admit that he had only discovered the extent of the fixing last month.

Mr Diamond reiterated that he “loved” Barclays and that he was “sorry, disappointed and angry” about some of the actions of the bank.

He said he felt “physically sick” when he read the emails detailing how traders had worked together to protect their trading positions.

However, he defended the bank’s handling of addressing the scandal once it became known to them. He said the review into the errors had been “very thorough” and that the first reaction of Barclays had been “let’s get to the bottom of this.”

Mr Diamond said that some of the guilty traders had already been dealt with and that there are “ongoing criminal investigations.”

Mr Diamond admitted that the memo released by Barclays yesterday of a conversation between himself and the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, Paul Tucker, was not the first conversation he had with Mr Tucker on the subject of Libor.

The Bank of England released a statement today saying that Mr Tucker has asked to give his side of the story to the TSC.

The bank said: "Mr Tucker is keen to give evidence to the committee in order to clarify the position with regard to the events involving the Bank of England, including the telephone conversation with Bob Diamond on 29 October 2008."

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