The public prosecution department has been angered by the finance minister’s efforts to get Rabobank to instigate legal proceedings against staff involved in the Libor interest rate scandal, the NRC reports.

Senior official Marianne Bloos says in an interview with the NRC she considers it ‘irritating’ that the minister would think she needs a call to action.

Dijsselbloem said last week he hoped the department was seriously looking at legal action. And yesterday it emerged the minister has been putting pressure on the bank to act.

Banks

‘We consider the case to be very serious,’ Bloos told the paper, in a first reaction to the case by the prosecution department. ‘People have to be able to trust the stability of the banking system. This threatens the banking system. This is why we tackle this sort of thing.’

Fourteen of the 30 Rabobank employees involved in the scandal still work for the bank and will not face prosecution, because of the terms of the settlement, the NRC said. Fifteen others were sacked or resigned and the department is now looking at whether they should face legal action.

That is a time consuming process, Bloos told the paper. Many of those involved are foreigners who remain abroad and some of the acts also took place abroad, she said.

Crime

Manipulating the Libor interest rate is not included as a criminal act in law but does fall under fraud legislation, which carries a maximum jail term of six years.

The Dutch regulatory authorities fined Rabobank €70m for its role in the affair, just under 10% of the total fine of €774m. Rabobank admitted 30 staff were involved in manipulating interest rates between 2005 and 2011.

The bank’s chief executive Piet Moerland stood down the day the settlement was made public but had been due to retire in 2014.