UBS in Process of Rooting Out Negative Elements, Orcel Says

UBS AG is in the process of rooting out “negative elements” of its corporate culture after Switzerland’s largest bank was fined $1.5 billion by regulators for trying to rig global interest rates, said Andrea Orcel, chief executive officer of the investment bank.

“We all got probably too arrogant, too self-convinced the things were correct the way they were -- I think the industry has to change,” Orcel, 49, said at a parliamentary hearing on Libor in London today. “There were certainly elements of our culture that were negative and that need to be rooted out and elements of our culture that we didn’t understand.”