Judge Rules In Favor Of Banks In Massive Libor Lawsuit
In case you missed it late Friday, big banks win again.
[Note: This is unrelated to Freddie Mac's Libor lawsuit filed recently.]
---
Judge Finds For Banks, Dismisses Most Claims In Libor Lawsuits
Reuters
A judge on Friday dismissed a "substantial portion" of claims facing a number of banks in a barrage of lawsuits accusing them of interest-rate rigging. U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan ruled for the banks, which include Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and others, of allegedly manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate, commonly known as Libor.
The judge granted the banks' motion to dismiss the plaintiffs' federal antitrust claims and partially dismissed their claims of commodities manipulation. She also dismissed racketeering and state-law claims.
The decision is a significant setback for private plaintiffs, whose lawsuits had been consolidated before the New York judge as part of a multidistrict proceeding.
In a 161-page opinion, Buchwald said she recognized her ruling might be "unexpected," since several defendants had paid billions of dollars in penalties to government regulatory agencies. But she said unlike government agencies, private plaintiffs needed to meet many requirements under the statutes to bring a case.
"Therefore, although we are fully cognizant of the settlements that several of the defendants here have entered into with government regulators, we find that only some of the claims that plaintiffs have asserted may properly proceed," she wrote.
More than a dozen banks and brokerages are under investigation by regulators worldwide for manipulating benchmark rates such as Libor, which have been the basis for more than $550 trillion in financial products.
Three banks have reached settlements with authorities to date. Most recently, Royal Bank of Scotland agreed to pay $612 million to U.S. and British authorities. UBS agreed in December to pay $1.5 billion. Barclays agreed to pay $453 million in June.
Last week:
Freddie Mac Sues JPM, BofA For Billions In Libor Losses
Apr 1, 2013 at 4:22 PM
Reader Comments (5)
The level of corruption is staggering, but the consequences will be mindboggeling, in either way, but the UssA will NEVER, EVER recover, its matchematicly and in all common sence, its not even possible, the debth is beyound sustaiability.
I consider this to be the eqvivalente of cutting ones arteies, and lett the poor sucker slowly blead to death.
Congratulations, american curts, you made this senario to a certainty, the ONLY variable is when.
hehe
Its f... unbelivable.
peace
http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCABRE99B0C720131013
LONDON (Reuters) - A British court will this week consider whether attempted manipulation of the benchmark interest rate Libor can invalidate loans and other deals or show that banks mis-sold products that were based upon the rate.
The Court of Appeal will on Tuesday begin a 3-day hearing examining two separate cases brought by clients against Barclays and Deutsche Bank. It is expected to hand down a landmark ruling later in the year, according to sources familiar with the cases.
If the decision goes against the banks, it could open the door to many more cases being brought against the industry by companies citing Libor manipulation, opening banks up to compensation claims worth billions of pounds.
The London interbank offered rate (Libor) is used to price over $300 trillion of financial contracts around the world.
"To unwind all Libor-linked derivative contracts would be financial Armageddon," said Abhishek Sachdev, managing director of Vedanta Hedging, which advises companies on interest rate hedging products.
In previous legal rulings judges have stopped short of saying Libor is relevant to all claims against banks but said it could be used in cases where contracts have been linked specifically to the benchmark.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/07/bill-black-libor-historys-largest-financial-crime-that-the-wsj-and-nyt-would-like-you-to-forget.html
I read a BBC story about the LIBOR criminal trial in the UK and was going to write to criticize its woeful analytics. In preparation I checked the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to see how they reported the devastating testimony in the trial. I could not, however, find any coverage in my electronic searches and viewing their web pages.
To review the bidding, the LIBOR bid rigging cartel was the largest cartel in history, manipulating the prices of an estimated $300+ trillion in assets. That is a figure considerably larger than the world’s combined GDP. Here are typical statements by the Department of Justice (DOJ) about the LIBOR cartel.
“For years, employees at Deutsche Bank illegally manipulated interest rates around the globe – including LIBORs for U.S. Dollar, Yen, Swiss Franc and Pound Sterling, as well as EURIBOR – in the hopes of fraudulently moving the market to generate profits for their traders at the expense of the bank’s counterparties,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. “Deutsche Bank is the sixth major financial institution that has admitted its misconduct in this wide-ranging criminal investigation, and today’s criminal resolution represents the largest penalty to date in the LIBOR investigation.”
“Deutsche Bank secretly conspired with its competitors to rig the benchmark interest rates at the heart of the global financial system,” said Assistant Attorney General Baer. “Deutsche Bank’s misconduct not only harmed its unsuspecting counterparties, it undermined the integrity and the competitiveness of financial markets everywhere.”…
-----------
This is worth reading in it's entirety,