Highlights - Parliament hearing with Barclays' Diamond

LONDON (Reuters) - Bob Diamond faced a grilling by MPs on Wednesday, a day after quitting as Barclays' chief executive over an interest rate rigging scandal.

Following are comments from Diamond from the hearing in parliament's Treasury Select Committee:

ON REACTION TO COMING OUT FIRST

"I know Barclays, if we have another situation going forward we'll still act the same way to come out and be first to correct it, but I worry that the impact of being first was, because we were most cooperative, because we put the most resources into this, and the reaction to the one firm that is out first outside of the industry contact doesn't create great incentives for others to come forward."

ASKED IF VARLEY SPOKE WITH MINISTERS OR TREASURY OFFICIALS

"Yes, I can't remember the exact conversation I had with John after that, but he did follow up and remember we are right in that two day window before we completed the equity transaction with the Qataris and Abu Dhabi, so it was a quite delicate time."

ON INTERPRETATION OF TUCKER CALL:

"(Tucker) was pointing out the problem and I was pointing out that the problem wasn't with Barclays, the problem was with other submissions.

"I didn't take it as a directive, I took it as either a heads up that you're high or an annoyance that you're high."

ON WIDER RAMIFICATIONS

"We have a profound issue, and it's an industry-wide issue, not just a Barclays issue, in terms of Libor submissions.

"I would suggest we wait and see, importantly, what the ramification of the industry-wide investigation are."

ON 2008 CALL WITH TUCKER

"The importance of the call to me was the heads up about the concerns in Whitehall who felt that since we were the high Libor submission it might mean something different than it meant."

ON HARM TO BRAND AND REPUTATION

"The actions we took when we found out, I think all of them were appropriate, including recognising that we would be out ahead of the pack and helping the regulators. We did not think the focus on this would be as intense in terms of potentially harming our brand and reputation."

LIBOR ISSUES NO SURPRISE

"We can't sit here and say no one knew there was an issue about Libor in the industry. We can't do it. This wasn't a surprise. ... On multiple occasions Barclays visited with the various regulators to bring these issues to their attention. Obviously there were some issues."

ON THE LIBOR RATE SETTERS

"The rate setters, in almost each case, had been with Barclays for 25 or 30 years. They are some of our most senior staff."

ON THE 'NO-JERK RULE'

"The culture was absolutely opposite of anything that we wanted. We have talked about the ?no-jerk rule'. We are serious in Barclays, not just Barclays Capital, but Barclays, that when people don't behave they have to leave. We missed it here, we missed it with 14 people, and that's wrong."

ON PAY OFF

(Asked about his final pay off and if there should be recognition of what went wrong)

"Those are questions for the board. I have not asked them nor has it been of interest to me in the last day or so. Since I resigned my focus was on preparing for today."

ON HOW SORRY HE IS

"I don't want to leave any impression about how sorry I am, how angry we are, how disappointed we are. What I am saying in the context of Barclays, which is an amazing institution that I love, there are people doing things for their communities, for their customers and clients, 140,000 of them, and we are all impacted by these 14 traders, and it's not OK, no one is saying this was OK, it was wrong."

ON CRIMINAL PROSECUTION

"There will be, I understand, follow-up criminal investigations on certain individuals. It's not up to us but we're certainly not going to stand in the way of it."

REACTION TO TRADERS' BEHAVIOUR

"I think people who do things that they're not supposed to do should be dealt with harshly. I think they should go through due process. I think we have been through a process ourselves of dealing harshly with people.

"David, when I got the results of this investigation and it was because of the interviews, as I've said, I didn't see a lot of the detail. I was aware there was an investigation and I was broadly aware that things were coming out. When I read the emails from those traders, I got physically ill. It's reprehensible behaviour and if you're asking me should those actions be dealt with, absolutely."

"That behaviour was reprehensible, it was wrong. I am sorry, I am disappointed and I am also angry. There is absolutely no excuse for the behaviour that was exhibit in those activities and the types of emails that were written.

And I stand for a lot of people at Barclays that are really, really angry about this."

ON COMMUNICATION WITH DEL MISSIER

"I was not aware that Jerry (del Missier) had a miscommunication or a misunderstanding, Jerry didn't say that to me."

ON SITUATION IN 2008

"My first reaction (to the conversation with Paul Tucker) was: John, you have to get to Whitehall, you have to make sure they knew we are funding fine.

"This was a very pressurised situation. This was probably a momentous week in the history of Barclays and the history of the financial markets.

"(Asked if he saw this as ministers or officials asking him to fiddle your submission) "I didn't see that no."

ON BARCLAYS COOPERATION WITH REGULATORS

"This week the focus has been on Barclays in many ways because they were first. And I worry that the world looks at Barclays and a small group of traders who had reprehensible behaviour and that that is being put on Barclays in a way that is not representative of the firm that I love so much.

"In Barclays it has been three years with three of the most important regulatory agencies in the world, looking at millions of files. All three regulatory agencies applauding Barclays for their cooperation, for their analysis, for their proactivity. The attitude of Barclays three years ago when this was recognised was - let's get to the bottom of it.

"I think that attitude is recognised by the three regulatory agencies and what they wrote, but it does not coming out in the court of public opinion in the last week."

ON MEMO

"I think that was the core of the reason that I dictated that note and communicated with John (Varley) right away. As you saw the file note was to John, and the concern we had, if I can put it in context, this was October 29 2008, after... we have had the government intervention, Royal Bank of Scotland, the government intervention of Lloyds.

"For the first, two days later, the fundraising from the Middle East was completed so within the context of this market, there was a worry that if people in Whitehall, which in my mind are officials in the government."

ON 2008 LIBOR POSTINGS OF OTHER BANKS

"There was a perception in Whitehall that our rates were high, and our worry was that if members of the government thought our rates were high, and if they took that to mean we couldn't fund, and couldn't fund adequately...."

"It was clear a number of a firms that were posting, had emergency loans, had been nationalised, or were having trouble funding. I said to Paul (Tucker) we were funding at those levels. But we would question whether other institutions could get funds at the levels they were posting."

WHY HE WAS NOT AWARE OF DISCUSSIONS ABOUT LIBOR

(Questions: Bearing in mind how important that rate was to Barclays, what does it say that you were not aware of the discussions? We're talking about the discussion at the time...why when this got serious were you unaware?)

"It was not brought to that level. And part of that is that there were ongoing meetings at the level below that with the regulators."

(Why not?)

"I think there was the feeling that it had been resolved."

ON RESIGNATION

"I love Barclays. History will judge Barclays as an incredible institution because of its people. We need to get through this period and the best way to do that was to step down.

"Let me explain why I changed my mind. It's a good question. It wasn't over the weekend because we worked over the weekend on a communication to our colleagues internally.

"We did that knowing that we had the support of the board, support of our shareholders who we had been working with, from the announcement at the end of the week, of our colleagues, of our clients, of our customers and our regulators.

"It was clear to me on Monday that that support wasn't as strong, and that I needed to take a step and ... the support from the regulators wasn't as strong as it had been and I need to take this step."

DECISION TO RESIGN

"The best way I think I can help ... prevent the damage to the reputation that has happened over the last week, the best way for me to do that was to step down, but continue to come here and answer the questions of the committee."

ASKED WHETHER REGULATORS CALLED AGIUS

"I don't know ... If Marcus (Agius) had conversations with regulators, that is a conversation for him to have with you, I did not discuss that with him."

CULTURAL ISSUES RAISED BY FSA:

"There was a discussion that, as it got down into the organisation, they felt that there was some cultural issues, that people sometimes pushed back, that some of the push back wasn't always followed up at the top. So there was an overall discussion on culture."

"It was part of an annual review, so it's always going to have some things that they're going to be critical of and we can do better."

ON MANAGEMENT STYLE

"I think my management style, if that's what you're asking, at the time, was to have an executive committee that had all the representatives of the things that reported up into me.

I certainly preferred a consensus style of management, that we could agree on the right decision as opposed to the chief executive making all the decisions."

ON HIS APPOINTMENT

"That's the first I've ever heard that there was any question about my appointment as chief executive. ... I got very strong support for my appointment as chief executive."

(Reporting by Sven Egenter)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/parliament-hearing-barclays-diamond-133027206--business.html

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