Fed cooperating with probe on leak: Yellen

US Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen on Monday said the central bank was cooperating with authorities over the alleged leak of confidential information in 2012 ahead of a crucial meeting of the bank’s monetary policy panel.

The Justice Department is probing what it suspects were organized leaks, carried out before an important monetary policy decision by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in October of that year, Yellen said in a letter to lawmakers.

Medley Global Advisory, a Financial Times unit that sells analyses to investors, on October 3, 2012 published confidential information on a meeting of the Fed’s monetary policy committee held in September.

During that meeting the Fed said it would launch a major program of buying assets to stimulate US economic growth.

In the letter Monday, Yellen said she met with Regina Schleiger, an official of Medley Global Advisors, on June 11, 2012 to hear her views on international economic policy, but made clear she did not reveal sensitive information.

“Nothing Medley Global Advisors reported in October about the events of the September 2012 FOMC meeting could have been conveyed in June and let me assure you that, in any case, I did not convey any confidential information,” Yellen said in the letter.

At the time — June-October of 2012 — Yellen was the number-two official at the Fed.

The US central bank is cooperating fully with the Justice Department, she told lawmakers, who are seeking the names of staffers who are the target of the internal investigation.

She asked US lawmakers not to release the names of the staffers or information that is going to be passed on to them, at least until the internal probe is completed.