Reuters: US Dollar Report: HIGHLIGHTS-Parliament hearing with Barclays' Diamond

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HIGHLIGHTS-Parliament hearing with Barclays' Diamond Jul 4th 2012, 13:35 LONDON, July 4 | Wed Jul 4, 2012 10:00am EDT LONDON, July 4 (Reuters) - Bob Diamond faced a grilling by British lawmakers on Wednesday, a day after quitting as Barclays' chief executive over an interest rate rigging scandal. Following are comments from Diamond from the hearing in parliament's Treasury Select Committee: ON BARCLAYS COOPERATION WITH REGULATORS "This week the focus has been on Barclays in many ways because they were first. And I worry that the world looks at Barclays and a small group of traders who had reprehensible behaviour and that that is being put on Barclays in a way that is not representative of the firm that I love so much. "In Barclays it has been three years with three of the most important regulatory agencies in the world, looking at millions of files. All three regulatory agencies applauding Barclays for their cooperation, for their analysis, for their proactivity. The attitude of Barclays three years ago when this was recognised was - let's get to the bottom of it  "I think that attitude is recognised by the three regulatory agencies and what they wrote, but it does not coming out in the court of public opinion in the last week." ON MEMO "I think that was the core of the reason that I dictated that note and communicated with John (Varley) right away. As you saw the file note was to John, and the concern we had, if I can put it in context, this was October 29 2008, after... we have had the government intervention, Royal Bank of Scotland, the government intervention of Lloyds. "For the first, two days later, the fundraising from the Middle East was completed so within the context of this market, there was a worry that if people in Whitehall, which in my mind are officials in the government." ON 2008 LIBOR POSTINGS OF OTHER BANKS "There was a perception in Whitehall that our rates were high, and our worry was that if members of the government thought our rates were high, and if they took that to mean we couldn't fund, and couldn't fund adequately...." "It was clear a number of a firms that were posting, had emergency loans, had been nationalised, or were having trouble funding. I said to Paul (Tucker) we were funding at those levels. But we would question whether other institutions could get funds at the levels they were posting." ON RESIGNATION "I love Barclays. History will judge Barclays as an incredible institution because of its people. We need to get through this period and the best way to do that was to step down. "Let me explain why I changed my mind. It's a good question. It wasn't over the weekend because we worked over the weekend on a communication to our colleagues internally. "We did that knowing that we had the support of the board, support of our shareholders who we had been working with, from the announcement at the end of the week, of our colleagues, of our clients, of our customers and our regulators. "It was clear to me on Monday that that support wasn't as strong, and that I needed to take a step and ... the support from the regulators wasn't as strong as it had been and I need to take this step." DECISION TO RESIGN "The best way I think I can help ... prevent the damage to the reputation that has happened over the last week, the best way for me to do that was to step down, but continue to come here and answer the questions of the committee." CULTURAL ISSUES RAISED BY FSA: "There was a discussion that, as it got down into the organisation, they felt that there was some cultural issues, that people sometimes pushed back, that some of the push back wasn't always followed up at the top. So there was an overall discussion on culture." "It was part of an annual review, so it's always going to have some things that they're going to be critical of and we can do better." ON HIS APPOINTMENT "That's the first I've ever heard that there was any question about my appointment as chief executive. ... I got very strong support for my appointment as chief executive." Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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