Everyone who’s gone through the early stages of an academic career has had an undergraduate research supervisor, and a Ph.D. and postdoc adviser. But not everyone can claim to have had a mentor. Even fewer can claim to have had more than one. And that’s too bad.

The essential difference between an adviser and a mentor is that the adviser directs while the mentor guides. An adviser often has an agenda, be it to point your research in a particular direction or merely to publish more papers. Foremost among a mentor’s concerns are your professional development and personal well-being. A mentor offers you support, guidance, and even solace with no other motive than helping you identify and reach your own goals. A mentor is someone you can open yourself up to without fearing deleterious consequences.

If you are lucky, your adviser is also a mentor, but many mentors are found outside of the lab.

It is also common — and recommendable — to have several mentors, each contributing a unique approach to your problem or situation to help you broaden your perspective. As you move up the career ladder, you should also expect your mentoring needs to change. A new mentor may be needed.

Whatever your career stage, it is important not to see yourself only as a protégé. Even at the Ph.D. level, you can start giving back to the scientific community by mentoring younger scientists. It is also possible for peers to support each other in a mentorly way. And mentoring relationships need not be one-sided: Protégés can give back more to their mentors than the satisfaction of being a mentor. Mentoring is, above all, a relationship of support and trust between a senior and a junior scientist, and the experience can be tremendously rewarding for both, professionally and personally.

But, like any relationship, mentoring takes time and dedication. So on the one hand, it is appropriate and important for you to seek and accept offers of mentorship because you have much to offer the world and an investment in you is well justified. On the other hand, if you want a relationship to endure — including a mentoring relationship — you need to make sure that both sides benefit.

Below we highlight the best Science Careers articles about the meaning and importance of mentoring and how to make it rewarding for both mentors and protégés.

General mentoring advice and programs

Armando Rodriguez, winner of a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring, explains the importance of mentoring both for protégés and mentors.

In our 2008 global feature on mentoring, we look at both sides of a mentoring relationship and give advice on how to make it work.

Professors at Columbia University discuss the importance of mentoring — and the hazards of some apparently mentorly relationships — in ”Transitioning From Pet to Peer.”

The GrantDoctor discusses the importance of mentorship or collaboration with an experienced investigator ongrant proposals.

Mentoring for protégés

Our Mastering Your Ph.D. columnists give advice on how to look for a mentor.

Our Mind Matters expert tells how to spot a good mentor and cultivate a relationship that will improve your professional prospects.

A leader in the field of mentoring and mentor training in clinical and translational sciences, Joan M. Lakoski offers”Top 10 Tips to Maximize Your Mentoring.”

Andrew I. Schafer, chair of the department of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, highlights the importance of having a mentor in making it as a physician-scientist.

Physicist Joan Hoffmann used support from an industry-based mentor to navigate graduate school and launch her career.

Sander van Zuijlen’s Ph.D. supervisor was not only an adviser but also a mentor who eventually became ascientific collaborator.

Freelance science writer David Bradley explains how you can get by with a little help from your friends.

Mentoring for mentors

The MentorDoctor explains the difference between an adviser and a mentor.

Taken for Granted Columnist Beryl Lieff Benderly discusses how some new policies have encouraged the provision of mentoring by principal investigators.

Educated Woman columnist Micella Phoenix DeWhyse reflects on what a mentor is and isn’t.

Before making the decision to become a mentor, senior scientists should consider some ethical dilemmas.

Lakoski and Philip S. Clifford, an associate dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Medical College of Wisconsin, offer ”Top 10 Tips for Mentors.”

In “Athena in Mentor’s Clothing” part one and part two, Vid Mohan-Ram looks at what makes an investigator a good mentor, and offers some tips.

Rodriguez provides a checklist of requirements and responsibilities for good mentoring.

Mentoring for minorities

Reposted on Science Careers, this Computing Research Association article looks at how mentoring can helpretain minority students in graduate programs.

Jean Fuller-Stanley, a former director of the Minority Mentoring Science Program at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, offers another approach to mentoring that can increase the retention of minority students and boost morale.

A key issue in the retention of women in the physician-scientist trainee pipeline is ensuring they have support from peers and mentors.

Freelance science writer Karyn Hede asks women physician-scientists whether they need role models who are women.

Patrick Limbach, a middle-aged white faculty member, reflects on how to be an effective mentor for minority students.

DeWhyse writes that successful minority scientists need to improve how they foster and encourage each other’s success and growth. In part two, she offers practical methods on how to do so.

This AAAS/Science Custom Publishing Office special feature discusses the importance of role models and mentors to reaching gender equity in science.

Another AAAS/Science Custom Publishing Office special feature looks at the place of mentoring in the professional lives of young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender scientists.

The AAAS/Science Custom Publishing Office also published several mentoring success stories with Native Americans and Latinos.

Mentoring programs

Carlos Castillo-Chavez examines different mentoring program models and their influence on diversity in the U.S. higher educational system.

Over the last 3 decades, the University of Toronto’s Status of Women Office has been working to remove barriers and inequities for female students, staff, and faculty.

The Alberta Women’s Science Network was set up with the goal “to give women in science opportunities to realize their full potential and to attain a higher profile in society.”

The National Graduate Degrees for Minorities for Engineering and Science Consortium provides funding, a support network, mentoring, and professional development to underrepresented minority graduate students in the United States.

The Coalition to Diversify Computing in the United States increases minority participation in computer science.

Dissatisfied with his field’s white-male, “old boy” network, Benjamin Cuker created a Minorities Program at the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography 2 decades ago.

A search for ”mentor” retrieves more than 920 entries on Science Careers; ”mentoring” returns more than 520; searching for ”role model” returns more than 560 articles; searching on ”adviser” yields more than 930 results.

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Comco, Switzerland’s competition commission, has opened an investigation into more than 10 international banks and companies and the country’s two largest, UBS and Credit Suisse, for possible “collusion between derivative traders [that] might have influenced the reference rates Libor and Tibor. Furthermore, market conditions regarding derivative products based on these reference rates might have been manipulated, too.”

The investigation follows what Comco calls an application to its leniancy programme, or self-denunciation, without providing details of who provided the information. The investigation could take several months. The banks targeted by the investigation include: Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, HSBC Holdings plc, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Rabobank Groep N.V., Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, Société Générale SA and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

Libor, the London interbank lending rate and Tibor, in Japan, are rates set daily based on bank data, which serve as underlying lending rates. The Swiss National Bank defines Libor as:

“The Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) refers to the interest rate for unsecured money market loans to prime banks. Each bank business day, specific banks report to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) the interest rate at which they would be able borrow unsecured funds of a reasonable market size on the London interbank market shortly prior to 11 a.m. The relevant top and bottom-quartile interest rates are disregarded when fixing the Libor. An average is calculated on the basis of the remaining interest rates, and the figure obtained in this manner is fixed and published as the Libor for the day in question. Libor rates are fixed in different currencies and with varying maturities.”

The investigation comes three weeks after European Union anti-trust boss Joaquin Almina said the EU is stepping up its efforts to ensure that derivatives markets remain free and competitive. Antoine Colombani, spokesperson for the European Commission is cited by Bloomberg as stating in January that “Last October we carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of a number of undertakings active in the sector of euro interest rate derivatives based on Euribor benchmark rates,” but that it had not opened a formal investigation.

“Regulators in the US, UK and European Union have been examining how Libor is set, while Japan’s securities watchdog has probed Tibor,” according to Bloomberg.

Comco’s statement notes:

“The London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and the Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate (Tibor) are reference rates which are aimed at reflecting the interest rate level in the interbank deposit market. The British Bankers’ Association (for Libor) and the Japanese Bankers’ Association (for Tibor) calculate these reference rates on a daily basis, for a range of currencies, based on submissions by respective panel banks. Derivative traders working for a number of financial institutions might have manipulated these submissions by coordinating their behaviour, thereby influencing these reference rates in their favour. Moreover, derivative traders might have colluded to manipulate the difference between the ask price and the bid price (spread) of derivatives based on these reference rates to the detriment of their clients.”

Comco says that assessing ‘the effects of the alleged practises on Swiss clients and companies is one of the aims of the investigation”

Everyone who’s gone through the early stages of an academic career has had an undergraduate research supervisor, and a Ph.D. and postdoc adviser. But not everyone can claim to have had a mentor. Even fewer can claim to have had more than one. And that’s too bad.

The essential difference between an adviser and a mentor is that the adviser directs while the mentor guides. An adviser often has an agenda, be it to point your research in a particular direction or merely to publish more papers. Foremost among a mentor’s concerns are your professional development and personal well-being. A mentor offers you support, guidance, and even solace with no other motive than helping you identify and reach your own goals. A mentor is someone you can open yourself up to without fearing deleterious consequences.

If you are lucky, your adviser is also a mentor, but many mentors are found outside of the lab.

It is also common — and recommendable — to have several mentors, each contributing a unique approach to your problem or situation to help you broaden your perspective. As you move up the career ladder, you should also expect your mentoring needs to change. A new mentor may be needed.

Whatever your career stage, it is important not to see yourself only as a protégé. Even at the Ph.D. level, you can start giving back to the scientific community by mentoring younger scientists. It is also possible for peers to support each other in a mentorly way. And mentoring relationships need not be one-sided: Protégés can give back more to their mentors than the satisfaction of being a mentor. Mentoring is, above all, a relationship of support and trust between a senior and a junior scientist, and the experience can be tremendously rewarding for both, professionally and personally.

But, like any relationship, mentoring takes time and dedication. So on the one hand, it is appropriate and important for you to seek and accept offers of mentorship because you have much to offer the world and an investment in you is well justified. On the other hand, if you want a relationship to endure — including a mentoring relationship — you need to make sure that both sides benefit.

Below we highlight the best Science Careers articles about the meaning and importance of mentoring and how to make it rewarding for both mentors and protégés.

General mentoring advice and programs

Armando Rodriguez, winner of a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring, explains the importance of mentoring both for protégés and mentors.

In our 2008 global feature on mentoring, we look at both sides of a mentoring relationship and give advice on how to make it work.

Professors at Columbia University discuss the importance of mentoring — and the hazards of some apparently mentorly relationships — in ”Transitioning From Pet to Peer.”

The GrantDoctor discusses the importance of mentorship or collaboration with an experienced investigator ongrant proposals.

Mentoring for protégés

Our Mastering Your Ph.D. columnists give advice on how to look for a mentor.

Our Mind Matters expert tells how to spot a good mentor and cultivate a relationship that will improve your professional prospects.

A leader in the field of mentoring and mentor training in clinical and translational sciences, Joan M. Lakoski offers”Top 10 Tips to Maximize Your Mentoring.”

Andrew I. Schafer, chair of the department of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, highlights the importance of having a mentor in making it as a physician-scientist.

Physicist Joan Hoffmann used support from an industry-based mentor to navigate graduate school and launch her career.

Sander van Zuijlen’s Ph.D. supervisor was not only an adviser but also a mentor who eventually became ascientific collaborator.

Freelance science writer David Bradley explains how you can get by with a little help from your friends.

Mentoring for mentors

The MentorDoctor explains the difference between an adviser and a mentor.

Taken for Granted Columnist Beryl Lieff Benderly discusses how some new policies have encouraged the provision of mentoring by principal investigators.

Educated Woman columnist Micella Phoenix DeWhyse reflects on what a mentor is and isn’t.

Before making the decision to become a mentor, senior scientists should consider some ethical dilemmas.

Lakoski and Philip S. Clifford, an associate dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Medical College of Wisconsin, offer ”Top 10 Tips for Mentors.”

In “Athena in Mentor’s Clothing” part one and part two, Vid Mohan-Ram looks at what makes an investigator a good mentor, and offers some tips.

Rodriguez provides a checklist of requirements and responsibilities for good mentoring.

Mentoring for minorities

Reposted on Science Careers, this Computing Research Association article looks at how mentoring can helpretain minority students in graduate programs.

Jean Fuller-Stanley, a former director of the Minority Mentoring Science Program at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, offers another approach to mentoring that can increase the retention of minority students and boost morale.

A key issue in the retention of women in the physician-scientist trainee pipeline is ensuring they have support from peers and mentors.

Freelance science writer Karyn Hede asks women physician-scientists whether they need role models who are women.

Patrick Limbach, a middle-aged white faculty member, reflects on how to be an effective mentor for minority students.

DeWhyse writes that successful minority scientists need to improve how they foster and encourage each other’s success and growth. In part two, she offers practical methods on how to do so.

This AAAS/Science Custom Publishing Office special feature discusses the importance of role models and mentors to reaching gender equity in science.

Another AAAS/Science Custom Publishing Office special feature looks at the place of mentoring in the professional lives of young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender scientists.

The AAAS/Science Custom Publishing Office also published several mentoring success stories with Native Americans and Latinos.

Mentoring programs

Carlos Castillo-Chavez examines different mentoring program models and their influence on diversity in the U.S. higher educational system.

Over the last 3 decades, the University of Toronto’s Status of Women Office has been working to remove barriers and inequities for female students, staff, and faculty.

The Alberta Women’s Science Network was set up with the goal “to give women in science opportunities to realize their full potential and to attain a higher profile in society.”

The National Graduate Degrees for Minorities for Engineering and Science Consortium provides funding, a support network, mentoring, and professional development to underrepresented minority graduate students in the United States.

The Coalition to Diversify Computing in the United States increases minority participation in computer science.

Dissatisfied with his field’s white-male, “old boy” network, Benjamin Cuker created a Minorities Program at the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography 2 decades ago.

A search for ”mentor” retrieves more than 920 entries on Science Careers; ”mentoring” returns more than 520; searching for ”role model” returns more than 560 articles; searching on ”adviser” yields more than 930 results

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Comco, Switzerland’s competition commission, has opened an investigation into more than 10 international banks and companies and the country’s two largest, UBS and Credit Suisse, for possible “collusion between derivative traders [that] might have influenced the reference rates Libor and Tibor. Furthermore, market conditions regarding derivative products based on these reference rates might have been manipulated, too.”

The investigation follows what Comco calls an application to its leniancy programme, or self-denunciation, without providing details of who provided the information. The investigation could take several months. The banks targeted by the investigation include: Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, HSBC Holdings plc, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Rabobank Groep N.V., Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, Société Générale SA and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

Libor, the London interbank lending rate and Tibor, in Japan, are rates set daily based on bank data, which serve as underlying lending rates. The Swiss National Bank defines Libor as:

“The Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) refers to the interest rate for unsecured money market loans to prime banks. Each bank business day, specific banks report to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) the interest rate at which they would be able borrow unsecured funds of a reasonable market size on the London interbank market shortly prior to 11 a.m. The relevant top and bottom-quartile interest rates are disregarded when fixing the Libor. An average is calculated on the basis of the remaining interest rates, and the figure obtained in this manner is fixed and published as the Libor for the day in question. Libor rates are fixed in different currencies and with varying maturities.”

The investigation comes three weeks after European Union anti-trust boss Joaquin Almina said the EU is stepping up its efforts to ensure that derivatives markets remain free and competitive. Antoine Colombani, spokesperson for the European Commission is cited by Bloomberg as stating in January that “Last October we carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of a number of undertakings active in the sector of euro interest rate derivatives based on Euribor benchmark rates,” but that it had not opened a formal investigation.

“Regulators in the US, UK and European Union have been examining how Libor is set, while Japan’s securities watchdog has probed Tibor,” according to Bloomberg.

Comco’s statement notes:

“The London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and the Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate (Tibor) are reference rates which are aimed at reflecting the interest rate level in the interbank deposit market. The British Bankers’ Association (for Libor) and the Japanese Bankers’ Association (for Tibor) calculate these reference rates on a daily basis, for a range of currencies, based on submissions by respective panel banks. Derivative traders working for a number of financial institutions might have manipulated these submissions by coordinating their behaviour, thereby influencing these reference rates in their favour. Moreover, derivative traders might have colluded to manipulate the difference between the ask price and the bid price (spread) of derivatives based on these reference rates to the detriment of their clients.”

Comco says that assessing ‘the effects of the alleged practises on Swiss clients and companies is one of the aims of the investigation”.

Everyone who’s gone through the early stages of an academic career has had an undergraduate research supervisor, and a Ph.D. and postdoc adviser. But not everyone can claim to have had a mentor. Even fewer can claim to have had more than one. And that’s too bad.

The essential difference between an adviser and a mentor is that the adviser directs while the mentor guides. An adviser often has an agenda, be it to point your research in a particular direction or merely to publish more papers. Foremost among a mentor’s concerns are your professional development and personal well-being. A mentor offers you support, guidance, and even solace with no other motive than helping you identify and reach your own goals. A mentor is someone you can open yourself up to without fearing deleterious consequences.

If you are lucky, your adviser is also a mentor, but many mentors are found outside of the lab.

It is also common — and recommendable — to have several mentors, each contributing a unique approach to your problem or situation to help you broaden your perspective. As you move up the career ladder, you should also expect your mentoring needs to change. A new mentor may be needed.

Whatever your career stage, it is important not to see yourself only as a protégé. Even at the Ph.D. level, you can start giving back to the scientific community by mentoring younger scientists. It is also possible for peers to support each other in a mentorly way. And mentoring relationships need not be one-sided: Protégés can give back more to their mentors than the satisfaction of being a mentor. Mentoring is, above all, a relationship of support and trust between a senior and a junior scientist, and the experience can be tremendously rewarding for both, professionally and personally.

But, like any relationship, mentoring takes time and dedication. So on the one hand, it is appropriate and important for you to seek and accept offers of mentorship because you have much to offer the world and an investment in you is well justified. On the other hand, if you want a relationship to endure — including a mentoring relationship — you need to make sure that both sides benefit.

Below we highlight the best Science Careers articles about the meaning and importance of mentoring and how to make it rewarding for both mentors and protégés.

General mentoring advice and programs

Armando Rodriguez, winner of a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring, explains the importance of mentoring both for protégés and mentors.

In our 2008 global feature on mentoring, we look at both sides of a mentoring relationship and give advice on how to make it work.

Professors at Columbia University discuss the importance of mentoring — and the hazards of some apparently mentorly relationships — in ”Transitioning From Pet to Peer.”

The GrantDoctor discusses the importance of mentorship or collaboration with an experienced investigator ongrant proposals.

Mentoring for protégés

Our Mastering Your Ph.D. columnists give advice on how to look for a mentor.

Our Mind Matters expert tells how to spot a good mentor and cultivate a relationship that will improve your professional prospects.

A leader in the field of mentoring and mentor training in clinical and translational sciences, Joan M. Lakoski offers”Top 10 Tips to Maximize Your Mentoring.”

Andrew I. Schafer, chair of the department of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, highlights the importance of having a mentor in making it as a physician-scientist.

Physicist Joan Hoffmann used support from an industry-based mentor to navigate graduate school and launch her career.

Sander van Zuijlen’s Ph.D. supervisor was not only an adviser but also a mentor who eventually became ascientific collaborator.

Freelance science writer David Bradley explains how you can get by with a little help from your friends.

Mentoring for mentors

The MentorDoctor explains the difference between an adviser and a mentor.

Taken for Granted Columnist Beryl Lieff Benderly discusses how some new policies have encouraged the provision of mentoring by principal investigators.

Educated Woman columnist Micella Phoenix DeWhyse reflects on what a mentor is and isn’t.

Before making the decision to become a mentor, senior scientists should consider some ethical dilemmas.

Lakoski and Philip S. Clifford, an associate dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Medical College of Wisconsin, offer ”Top 10 Tips for Mentors.”

In “Athena in Mentor’s Clothing” part one and part two, Vid Mohan-Ram looks at what makes an investigator a good mentor, and offers some tips.

Rodriguez provides a checklist of requirements and responsibilities for good mentoring.

Mentoring for minorities

Reposted on Science Careers, this Computing Research Association article looks at how mentoring can helpretain minority students in graduate programs.

Jean Fuller-Stanley, a former director of the Minority Mentoring Science Program at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, offers another approach to mentoring that can increase the retention of minority students and boost morale.

A key issue in the retention of women in the physician-scientist trainee pipeline is ensuring they have support from peers and mentors.

Freelance science writer Karyn Hede asks women physician-scientists whether they need role models who are women.

Patrick Limbach, a middle-aged white faculty member, reflects on how to be an effective mentor for minority students.

DeWhyse writes that successful minority scientists need to improve how they foster and encourage each other’s success and growth. In part two, she offers practical methods on how to do so.

This AAAS/Science Custom Publishing Office special feature discusses the importance of role models and mentors to reaching gender equity in science.

Another AAAS/Science Custom Publishing Office special feature looks at the place of mentoring in the professional lives of young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender scientists.

The AAAS/Science Custom Publishing Office also published several mentoring success stories with Native Americans and Latinos.

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Comco, Switzerland’s competition commission, has opened an investigation into more than 10 international banks and companies and the country’s two largest, UBS and Credit Suisse, for possible “collusion between derivative traders [that] might have influenced the reference rates Libor and Tibor. Furthermore, market conditions regarding derivative products based on these reference rates might have been manipulated, too.” The investigation follows what Comco calls an application to its leniancy programme, or self-denunciation, without providing details of who provided the information. The investigation could take several months. The banks targeted by the investigation include: Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, HSBC Holdings plc, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Rabobank Groep N.V., Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, Société Générale SA and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. Libor, the London interbank lending rate and Tibor, in Japan, are rates set daily based on bank data, which serve as underlying lending rates. The Swiss National Bank defines Libor as: “The Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) refers to the interest rate for unsecured money market loans to prime banks. Each bank business day, specific banks report to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) the interest rate at which they would be able borrow unsecured funds of a reasonable market size on the London interbank market shortly prior to 11 a.m. The relevant top and bottom-quartile interest rates are disregarded when fixing the Libor. An average is calculated on the basis of the remaining interest rates, and the figure obtained in this manner is fixed and published as the Libor for the day in question. Libor rates are fixed in different currencies and with varying maturities.” The investigation comes three weeks after European Union anti-trust boss Joaquin Almina said the EU is stepping up its efforts to ensure that derivatives markets remain free and competitive. Antoine Colombani, spokesperson for the European Commission is cited by Bloomberg as stating in January that “Last October we carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of a number of undertakings active in the sector of euro interest rate derivatives based on Euribor benchmark rates,” but that it had not opened a formal investigation. “Regulators in the US, UK and European Union have been examining how Libor is set, while Japan’s securities watchdog has probed Tibor,” according to Bloomberg. Comco’s statement notes: “The London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and the Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate (Tibor) are reference rates which are aimed at reflecting the interest rate level in the interbank deposit market. The British Bankers’ Association (for Libor) and the Japanese Bankers’ Association (for Tibor) calculate these reference rates on a daily basis, for a range of currencies, based on submissions by respective panel banks. Derivative traders working for a number of financial institutions might have manipulated these submissions by coordinating their behaviour, thereby influencing these reference rates in their favour. Moreover, derivative traders might have colluded to manipulate the difference between the ask price and the bid price (spread) of derivatives based on these reference rates to the detriment of their clients.”

Eldridge Financial Blog does not share any user’s personal information with any outside person or company. Eldridge Financial Blog does not collect or retain personal information from users’ browsing the Blog for the purposes of further contacting the user, unless the user provides his/her explicit consent to do so. When submitting personal information (such as an email address) to register for a service (such as Site access), clear notice is given regarding the use of the personal information and what further contact to expect as a consequence. Users always have the choice of opting out of further correspondence.

We provide many links to other websites, but Eldridge Financial Blog is not responsible for the information contained in these other sites. Similarly, the Privacy Policies of these outside sites might differ from those set forth on the Eldridge Financial blog.

Eldridge Financial Blog does not share any information provided. We take all reasonable measures to ensure that ordering data is kept safe.

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Comco, Switzerland’s competition commission, has opened an investigation into more than 10 international banks and companies and the country’s two largest, UBS and Credit Suisse, for possible “collusion between derivative traders [that] might have influenced the reference rates Libor and Tibor. Furthermore, market conditions regarding derivative products based on these reference rates might have been manipulated, too.”

The investigation follows what Comco calls an application to its leniancy programme, or self-denunciation, without providing details of who provided the information. The investigation could take several months. The banks targeted by the investigation include: Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, HSBC Holdings plc, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Rabobank Groep N.V., Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, Société Générale SA and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

Libor, the London interbank lending rate and Tibor, in Japan, are rates set daily based on bank data, which serve as underlying lending rates. The Swiss National Bank defines Libor as:

“The Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) refers to the interest rate for unsecured money market loans to prime banks. Each bank business day, specific banks report to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) the interest rate at which they would be able borrow unsecured funds of a reasonable market size on the London interbank market shortly prior to 11 a.m. The relevant top and bottom-quartile interest rates are disregarded when fixing the Libor. An average is calculated on the basis of the remaining interest rates, and the figure obtained in this manner is fixed and published as the Libor for the day in question. Libor rates are fixed in different currencies and with varying maturities.”

The investigation comes three weeks after European Union anti-trust boss Joaquin Almina said the EU is stepping up its efforts to ensure that derivatives markets remain free and competitive. Antoine Colombani, spokesperson for the European Commission is cited by Bloomberg as stating in January that “Last October we carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of a number of undertakings active in the sector of euro interest rate derivatives based on Euribor benchmark rates,” but that it had not opened a formal investigation.

“Regulators in the US, UK and European Union have been examining how Libor is set, while Japan’s securities watchdog has probed Tibor,” according to Bloomberg.

Comco’s statement notes:

“The London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and the Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate (Tibor) are reference rates which are aimed at reflecting the interest rate level in the interbank deposit market. The British Bankers’ Association (for Libor) and the Japanese Bankers’ Association (for Tibor) calculate these reference rates on a daily basis, for a range of currencies, based on submissions by respective panel banks. Derivative traders working for a number of financial institutions might have manipulated these submissions by coordinating their behaviour, thereby influencing these reference rates in their favour. Moreover, derivative traders might have colluded to manipulate the difference between the ask price and the bid price (spread) of derivatives based on these reference rates to the detriment of their clients.”

Comco says that assessing ‘the effects of the alleged practises on Swiss clients and companies is one of the aims of the investigation”.

Eldridge Financial Blog does not share any user’s personal information with any outside person or company. Eldridge Financial Blog does not collect or retain personal information from users’ browsing the Blog for the purposes of further contacting the user, unless the user provides his/her explicit consent to do so. When submitting personal information (such as an email address) to register for a service (such as Site access), clear notice is given regarding the use of the personal information and what further contact to expect as a consequence. Users always have the choice of opting out of further correspondence.

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BERN, SWITZERLAND – Comco, Switzerland’s competition commission, has opened an investigation into more than 10 international banks and companies and the country’s two largest, UBS and Credit Suisse, for possible “collusion between derivative traders [that] might have influenced the reference rates Libor and Tibor. Furthermore, market conditions regarding derivative products based on these reference rates might have been manipulated, too.”

The investigation follows what Comco calls an application to its leniancy programme, or self-denunciation, without providing details of who provided the information. The investigation could take several months. The banks targeted by the investigation include: Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, HSBC Holdings plc, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Rabobank Groep N.V., Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, Société Générale SA and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

Libor, the London interbank lending rate and Tibor, in Japan, are rates set daily based on bank data, which serve as underlying lending rates. The Swiss National Bank defines Libor as:

“The Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) refers to the interest rate for unsecured money market loans to prime banks. Each bank business day, specific banks report to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) the interest rate at which they would be able borrow unsecured funds of a reasonable market size on the London interbank market shortly prior to 11 a.m. The relevant top and bottom-quartile interest rates are disregarded when fixing the Libor. An average is calculated on the basis of the remaining interest rates, and the figure obtained in this manner is fixed and published as the Libor for the day in question. Libor rates are fixed in different currencies and with varying maturities.”

The investigation comes three weeks after European Union anti-trust boss Joaquin Almina said the EU is stepping up its efforts to ensure that derivatives markets remain free and competitive. Antoine Colombani, spokesperson for the European Commission is cited by Bloomberg as stating in January that “Last October we carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of a number of undertakings active in the sector of euro interest rate derivatives based on Euribor benchmark rates,” but that it had not opened a formal investigation.

“Regulators in the US, UK and European Union have been examining how Libor is set, while Japan’s securities watchdog has probed Tibor,” according to Bloomberg.

Comco’s statement notes:

“The London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and the Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate (Tibor) are reference rates which are aimed at reflecting the interest rate level in the interbank deposit market. The British Bankers’ Association (for Libor) and the Japanese Bankers’ Association (for Tibor) calculate these reference rates on a daily basis, for a range of currencies, based on submissions by respective panel banks. Derivative traders working for a number of financial institutions might have manipulated these submissions by coordinating their behaviour, thereby influencing these reference rates in their favour. Moreover, derivative traders might have colluded to manipulate the difference between the ask price and the bid price (spread) of derivatives based on these reference rates to the detriment of their clients.”

Comco says that assessing ‘the effects of the alleged practises on Swiss clients and companies is one of the aims of the investigation”.