N.Y. Fed to Release Libor Documents Friday

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York will release on Friday documents showing it took "prompt action" four years ago to highlight problems with the benchmark interest rate known as Libor and to press for reform, an official at the regional U.S. central bank said on Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York will release on Friday documents showing it took "prompt action" four years ago to highlight problems with the benchmark interest rate known as Libor and to press for reform, an official at the regional U.S. central bank said on Wednesday.

As early as 2007, the New York Fed may have discussed problems with the setting of the London Interbank Offered Rate with Barclays Plc, the British bank currently at the center of the Libor scandal and investigation.

This week, U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer requested transcripts related to such conversations between the Fed bank and Barclays. The New York Fed expects to provide on Friday even more documents than those requested by the congressman, according to a source familiar with the plan.

More than a dozen banks are under investigation by authorities in Europe, Japan and the United States over suspected rigging of the Libor, which is used in contracts worth trillions of dollars globally.

Some 16 banks contributed to the setting of dollar Libor rates in 2008, the period at the center of the investigations.

So far Barclays has been the only bank to admit any wrongdoing.

(Reporting By Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Paul Tait)