UBS Guilty Plea for Libor Seen Opening Door to Political Battle

UBS Group AG faces the prospect of making a guilty plea that would require it, along with four other giant global banks, to seek U.S. regulators’ permission to keep managing Americans’ money.

Several law experts said that UBS may face a harder road than others who are expected to enter guilty pleas for currency-market manipulation, although much could change when the details of the negotiated settlements are made public. The Zurich-based bank has already gone to regulators once to seek permission to keep operating at full tilt, and a guilty plea now would require it to return to the same doorsteps, possibly opening UBS to public or lawmaker questions about whether it should continue business as usual in the U.S., they said.