LIBOR rigging: Difference between revisions

LIBOR rigging (view source)

Revision as of 08:20, 10 April 2024

738 bytes added , 10 April

no edit summary

Amwelladmin

Bureaucrats, Interface administrators, Administrators

82,883

edits

@@ Line 158: / Line 158: @@
 {{Drop|B|ear in mind}} that the “legal question” to be answered here is one of criminal law, not contract: whether the nebulous ingredients of common law ”conspiracy to defraud” were satisfied.
 The LIBOR Definition was not a statute at all, let alone a criminal one. It formed part of a ''contract'' between the submitting banks and the BBA.
-Unlike crimes and torts, contracts do not admit of mental states or culpability. There is no ''mens rea''. You either comply with a contract, on the facts, or you don’t. One’s intention, recklessness or negligence does not come into it.<ref>Any number of tedious JC tracts refer such as[[contractual negligence|this one]]</ref>
+That is was not a criminal offence ''per se'' to fail to comply with LIBOR did not move the court:
-Furthermore, under the intellectual theory of criminal law, ignorance of the law is no excuse. This is as axiomatic for an effective criminal justice system as “all interests in cash pass by delivery” is to finance: the criminal justice system would not work were defendants allowed to plead ignorance, even presumptively. ''Ignorantia legis non excusat'', if you are blameless in your inadvertence, is a moral iniquity but still a logical imperative of good government.
+{{quote|
+That is not, however, determinative. It was not a criminal offence ''per se'' to fail to comply with the Take-over Code, but that did not stop it being treated in Spens''<ref>{{cite|R|Spens|1991|1 WLR|624}}.</ref> as something which demanded construction as a question of law in the same way as primary or delegated legislation. Although compliance with LIBOR or EURIBOR was not directly a regulated activity, it
+was indirectly so: failure to comply with their provisions could give rise to regulatory consequences.
+}}
-But again, this same does not hold for contract. Quite the opposite: under the intellectual theory of contract the parties ''are required to be'' materially cognisant of the whole thing. That is what [[offer]] and [[acceptance]] requires: if they are not, there is no contract.
+But unlike crimes and torts, contracts do not admit of mental states or “culpability”. There is no need for ''[[Mens rea and actus reus|mens rea]]''. You either comply with a contract, on the facts, or you don’t. One’s [[Degrees of liability|intention, recklessness or negligence]] does not come into it.<ref>Any number of tedious JC tracts refer, such as[[contractual negligence|this one]] and [[degrees of liability|this one]].</ref>
+Furthermore, under the intellectual theory of criminal law, ignorance is no excuse. This is as axiomatic for an effective criminal justice system as “all interests in cash pass by delivery” is to finance: the criminal justice system would not work were defendants allowed to plead ignorance, even presumptively. ''Ignorantia legis non excusat'', if you are blameless in your inadvertence, is a moral iniquity but still a practical imperative of good government.
+But again, this does not hold for contract. Quite the opposite: under the intellectual theory of contract the parties ''are required to be'' materially cognisant of the whole thing. That is what [[offer]] and [[acceptance]] requires: if they are not present, ''there is no contract''.
 So the rules of contractual interpretation have forged a different path: