Every morning, from his desk by the bathroom at the far end ofRoyal Bank of Scotland Group Plc's trading floor overlookingLondon's Liverpool Street station, Paul White punched a series ofnumbers into his computer.

White, who joined RBS in 1984, was one of the employeesresponsible for the firm's submissions to the London interbankoffered rate, or Libor, the global benchmark for more than $300trillion of contracts, from mortgages and student loans tointerest-rate swaps. Behind him sat Neil Danziger, a derivativestrader at the bank since 2002. On the morning of March 27, 2008,Tan Chi Min, Danziger's boss in Tokyo, told him to make sure thenext day's submission in yen would increase.

“We need to bump it way up high, highest among all if possible,”Tan, known by colleagues as “Jimmy,” wrote in an instant message toDanziger, according to a transcript made public by a Singaporecourt and reviewed by Bloomberg before being sealed by a judge atRBS's request.