New York - A federal judge Wednesday signed off on a $100m fine on UBS's subsidiary in Japan, part of a larger global crackdown on the Swiss banking giant in the Libor rate-rigging scandal.
US District Judge Robert Chatigny sentenced UBS Securities Japan to a $100m fine, which also includes an admission of criminal conduct. The fine is part of a $1.5bn settlement agreed by parent UBS with Swiss, British and US regulators last December.
The Japanese scheme dated from September 2006, when a senior trader at UBS's Tokyo office "orchestrated a sustained, wide-ranging and systemic scheme" to move Yen Libor in a direction favorable to the trader's positions, the justice department said in a news release.
Libor, which stands for the London Interbank Offered Rate, is a leading benchmark used in financial transactions worldwide.
UBS Japan made false and misleading Libor submissions to the British Bankers Association, which publishes Libor, and caused other market participants to make false Libor submissions to the BBS, the justice department said.
Regulators from the US, Britain and Switzerland unveiled a $1.5bn settlement with parent company UBS ast December, involving penalties and disgorgement to a number of regulators.