Treasury Police Act for First Time Since Salomon

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Regulators who police the U.S. Treasury market are preparing to warn Wall Street's top bond traders against manipulation for the first time in 15 years.
The heads of Treasury bond trading and compliance officers from the 22 primary dealers -- the banks and securities firms that trade government securities directly with the Fed -- were summoned to a meeting at 4 p.m. today by Dino Kos, executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The executives will be addressing concerns raised by the Interagency Working Group on Market Surveillance, a group set up after Salomon Inc. admitted to rigging five Treasury auctions in 1991. The group, made up of officials from the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is probing firms including UBS AG for allegedly hoarding securities to profit by boosting prices. Regulators are concerned because an average $528 billion of Treasuries trade each day and provide the benchmarks for borrowing costs around the world.