EU lawmakers should enact tougher punishments for market abusers, including jail time, by the end of the year in response to the Libor scandal, according to the EU internal markets commissioner Michel Barnier.

A culture of banks rigging interest-rate benchmarks shows the importance of an agreement on tougher market-abuse rules, Mr Barnier told members of the European Parliament in Brussels yesterday. EU regulators are also investigating possible breaches

in cartel rules from both banks and brokers in the setting of Libor, Joaquin Almunia, the EU’s competition commissioner, said in his testimony to the European Parliament.

“The only thing that’s not possible is self-regulation or the status quo,” Mr Barnier said. – (Bloomberg)