Germany launches gold, silver price-fixing probe

The German financial watchdog, BaFin, said Wednesday it is looking into allegations of possible manipulation by banks in gold and silver price-fixing. "In addition to the Libor and Euribor interest rates, BaFin is looking at other  bench-marking processes such as gold and silver price fixing at individual banks," the watchdog said in a statement. "The probe was launched a number of months ago and is still ongoing," BaFin said, adding that for confidentiality reasons it could not say which banks are concerned or the state of the investigation. The prices of gold and silver are fixed twice-daily in London,acting as a benchmark for other precious metal markets. The gold price is fixed via a teleconference between five banks, Bank of Nova Scotia, Barclays, HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale. The silver price is fixed by Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Bank of Novia Scotia. Libor and Euribor are estimates of the rates at which banks lend money to each other and are based on estimates provided by a panel of banks. The index is used to set rates on a multitude of contracts andfinancial products. The manipulation of such indices has already led to significant fines for banks. The scandal erupted last year when Barclays was fined $290 million ($466 million, 339 million euros) by British and US regulators for attempted manipulation of interbank rates between 2005 and 2009.