LONDON, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- British regulators said Monday they will file charges against three former Barclays employees suspected of manipulating a global benchmark interest rate.
The Serious Fraud Office said that Peter C. Johnson and Jonathan J. Mathew, former rate submitters at Barclays, and former Barclays trader Stylianos Contogoulas will face charges they conspired to manipulate the London interbank offered rate, also known as Libor, the New York Times reported.
Johnson, Mathew and Contogoulas are to appear in Magistrate's Court in London at a later date, the office said.
The conspiracy to defraud occurred between June 2005 and August 2007, the Serious Fraud Office said.
The agency did not provide more information about its case.
The new criminal proceedings are the latest development in a broadening investigation into the manipulation of important interest rates.
Some of the world's largest banks caught in the scandal have agreed to pay billions of dollars to settle allegations with regulators in Britain, the United States and elsewhere, the Times said.
In December, a former derivatives trader at UBS and Citigroup, and two former traders at the RP Martin brokerage firm pleaded not guilty to charges arising from the scandal.
