EU softens new rules on benchmark rigging

BRUSSELS: EU regulators will abandon earlier plans to place commodity and financial benchmarks under the sole watch of a Paris-based regulator when they announce a legal framework to prevent price rigging.

The draft law, to be presented by the European Union’s regulation chief Michel Barnier, is a central plank of the bloc’s response to the rigging of the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) – a benchmark used to price products from home loans to credit cards worth US$300 trillion.