Amid recent media reports of banks manipulating interest rates, cheating consumers, and doing business with money launderers, the Center for Responsive Politics' early review of second quarter lobbying filings reveals a a noticeable drop in lobbying expenditures for a few (now infamous) banks.
Overall, banks maintained strong visibility in the halls of Congress and at the regulatory agencies. But Barclays, whose CEO Bob Diamond resigned last month after the British bank was fined for manipulating information that affects a key interest rate known as LIBOR, barely registered a lobbying presence over the last three months. The disgraced bank reported spending only $160,000 in the most recent quarter, and $450,000 in the first quarter of 2012.
By this time last year, Barclays had spent $2,300,000, almost four times its 2012 year-to-date amount. Read full article
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