Then all they'd have to do is find someone willing to enforce the law…
* * *
By Barbara Lewis Reuters Thursday, July 26, 2012
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Manipulating international commodity benchmarks such as Brent crude oil would be a criminal offence, punishable by jail, under a set of reforms the EU Commission has proposed in response to the rigging of a major interest reference rate.
The commission, the EU's executive arm, announced on Wednesday plans to tighten supervision of financial benchmarks after a scandal involving interbank lending rate Libor, used to set prices for trillions of dollars of financial products.
The benchmarks the commission wants to make more "reliable, transparent, and credible" also include commodities such as gold, cocoa, and Brent crude.
It would become an offence to transmit false or misleading information, provide "false or misleading inputs, or any action which manipulated the calculation of a benchmark," if the European Parliament and 27 EU member states endorse the proposals.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/26/eu-benchmarks-idUSL6E8IQEL7201...
