Geithner suggested Libor reform in 2008 International regulators exchanged ideas about how to improve the credibility of the controversial Libor interbank borrowing mechanism in mid-2008, but the Bank of England took a more hands-off approach than US authorities, according to the evidence of emails released on both sides of the Atlantic. Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, who is under fire in the US for his oversight of the key lending gauge, sent a memo to the Bank of England in May 2008 which recommended reforms to how the rate is set by a group of the world's largest financial institutions. At the time the memo was sent to BoE governor Sir Mervyn King, Mr Geithner was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mr Geithner's suggestions in the memo contained six suggestions for "enhancing the credibility" of the London Interbank Offered Rate. Libor, used as the basis for the pricing of hundreds of trillions of dollars of financial instruments, had come under fire in the first flush of the financial crisis over suspicions it was not a fair reflection of banks" funding costs. More than 20 banks and other institutions remain embroiled in an international regulatory probe into manipulation of Libor. The chairman and chief executive of Barclays recently lost their jobs following the bank's £290m settlement with regulators over the affair. In the email, Mr Geithner recommended to Sir Mervyn and a deputy governor, Paul Tucker, key changes to the way the Libor was determined, including requiring the bank auditors to attest to the accuracy of the submissions of their daily borrowing rates to the Libor panel. Libor is set by the British Bankers" Association, an industry group, and is not formally overseen by the BoE. Sir Mervyn passed on Mr Geithner's suggestion to the BBA, through Mr Tucker, according to email correspondence released by the BoE, but appears not to have taken any proactive role itself. Mr Geithner's recommendations were subsequently incorporated into a BBA consultation exercise on overhauling Libor, carried out in June. Sir Mervyn said in a four-line email reply to Mr Geithner that the recommendations "seem sensible to us." Mr Tucker sent two one-line emails to Angela Knight, chief executive of the BBA, and there is reference to a phone call. Details of an email from Ms Knight to Mr Tucker were also released in which she merely says "changes are being made [to the consultation paper] to incorporate the views of the Fed." The emails have come to light as Mr Geithner faces criticism from US lawmakers who suggest that financial regulators knew about attempted rigging of the lending gauge and yet did nothing. On Thursday, a dozen senior Democratic lawmakers urged Eric Holder, attorney-general and the top US law enforcement officer, to hold regulators to account if they had known that Libor was being manipulated yet looked the other way. On Friday, the New York Fed is expected to release documents which will attempt to show its efforts in dealing with "problems" it discovered with Libor after the onset of the financial crisis in 2007. The regulator, which acts as the Fed's liaison to Wall Street, has said it discovered problems with Libor and subsequently recommended reforms. Following a consultation exercise, the BBA adopted the first two of Mr Geithner's suggestions - to strengthen the governance of Libor-setting by expanding its oversight committee and to increase the panel involved in setting US dollar Libor. But four other recommendations were not adopted. These had suggested adding a later time for US dollar Libor setting than the current 11am, specifying the size of lending that could be achieved at the specified price, cutting the spread of maturities for which rates were quoted and "eliminating the incentive to misreport" by basing Libor on a random selection of banks" rates, rather than the average of those in the middle.