[ by Melanie Gretchen ] The Libor scandal did not end with the $453 million Barclays paid to settle allegations that it manipulated the rate affecting hundreds of trillions of dollars.  It should also come as no surprise then that the scandal did not stop with Barclays.  Francesco Gurrera predicts 5 upcoming issues as the scandals extends to several other banks accused of manipulation of the Libor, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings Plc, UBS, and Royal Bank of Scotland. 1. Brace for a wave of lawsuits. Between at least 2005 and 2009, Libor couldn't be trusted because members of the banks' cartel charged with setting it tried to manipulate it, according to regulators. Unbeknown to those who bought them, trillions of dollars of financial instruments were priced at the wrong rate—a fact that could do wonders for plaintiffs' lawyers while undermining investors' confidence in financial markets. 2. Regulators should shoulder some blame. The way in which Libor is set—a panel of lenders send estimates of borrowing costs every morning to the British Bankers' Association, a trade group—should have made it easy to spot abnormal submissions and potential collusion. In fact, alarm bells started ringing in April 2008, when The Wall Street Journal first reported on the issue. Part of the problem is structural. Libor is an unregulated rate and the U.K. Financial Services Authority doesn't police it. But the fact that the British regulator ignored several warnings, from Barclays's employees among others, bolsters the argument for its dismantling. The BBA and the FSA declined to comment for this column. 3. The Libor-setting process is changing for good. The small print of the settlement between Barclays and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission contains the seeds of a new regime. The U.K. bank now must base its submissions on market prices rather than some hazy estimate of borrowing costs. It also will beef up monitoring and compliance structures to prevent traders from influencing its rate setters. Most important, an independent auditor will scrutinize Barclays's Libor submissions for the next five years and report back to the CFTC. If more settlements materialize, these rules likely will end up applying to other banks. A once-unregulated process is firmly on the watchdogs' radar now. 4. The probe may yet claim more bank chiefs. The investigation found that Barclays's traders communicated with colleagues at some of the 16 banks involved in Libor setting. As one Barclays trader explained to another one at a rival lender, "the trick is you must not do this alone." This kind of evidence should help regulators prove that others were in on the fix. Given Mr. Diamond's resignation, the question is whether CEOs of other firms will follow suit once their companies settle. While some will argue they weren't there at the time, those with long tenure and an investment-banking past will come under pressure. "CEOs of other banks should be worried, especially those who rose through the ranks of the fixed-income and rate businesses" says Michael Karp, managing partner of Options Group, an executive search and consulting firm. 5. Paul Tucker may not become the head of the Bank of England. Mr. Tucker, deputy governor of the central bank, is a front-runner to replace his boss when Mervyn King steps down next June. But despite his spirited defense, his copybook might have been blotted both by Mr. Diamond and Monday's hearing. Mr. Tucker denied the allegation, implicit in a October 2008 note by the Barclays chief, that he had put pressure on the bank to lower its Libor submissions. But he was attacked by some Parlamentarians for not heeding warning signs of anomalies in the setting of Libor. Even if Mr. Tucker is safe, Mr. Diamond's "no-jerks policy is unlikely to be the only casualty of this scandal." CI Note: We concur. For further details, go to [WSJ, 7/9/12].