In a memo released to Barclays staff, outgoing Chairman Marcus Agius appeared to throw the rest of his Liebor-fixing cohort banks under the bus, noting that "As other banks settle with authorities, and their details become public, and various governments' inquiries shed more light, our situation will eventually be put in perspective" by the fines handed out to other international banks. As Sky News [4] reports, it appears 90 million emails and 1 million voicemails will be made available to the independent body spearheading the Liebor probe - the details of which are being finalized this weekend. While the rest of the memo focused on the restoration of Barclays' reputation and the "trust that has been so badly damaged", they quite clearly hinted at its rivals were likely to be hit with even harder fines that the GBP290 million imposed on Barclays. They add, as if we did not need reminding that "the macro-environment remains febrile, especially in Europe. We have to remain vigilant on balance sheet exposures and risk management. In short, our focus must remain on capital, funding and liquidity; improving returns; and driving income growth." But we can't help but feel a Citi's Chuck Prince-esque defense coming here that 'everyone was doing it' and while the music still played, we kept 'dancing'.
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