Brussels, 13/07/2012 (Agence Europe) -On Friday 13 July 2012, Commissioner Almunia and his spokesperson said that the European Commission was carrying out a number of investigations of suspected cartels on a number of interest rate derivatives markets, such as suspected manipulation of inter-bank interest rates indices like Libor, Ribor and Tokyo's Tibor. Inspections were carried out in October into suspected manipulation of the euro interest rate index Ribor, and other investigations are also under way. At this stage, the Commission has not opened any formal investigations, and the next stage would be the sending of a statement of concerns to the companies in question. The Commission says that it wants to make abuse of the market a criminal offence by amending the market abuse regulation and adding criminal penalties to the market abuse directive. In light of the revelations of manipulation of the Libor index by Barclays Bank between 2005 and 2009, the Commission says that EU legislation has loopholes because direct manipulation of interest rate indices is not an action crime as such and it is time for manipulation by operators, including credit rating agencies to be made a criminal offence. (FG/transl.fl)