Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup—and more than a dozen other banks— are facing claims of rigging rates for a benchmark used in the sales of interest-rate derivatives, along with other financial instruments.
The banks tried to get US District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan to throw out the antitrust lawsuits accusing them of scheming to set ISDAfix—an industry benchmark—impacting trillions in financial instruments, Bloomberg reports.
But he refused, saying investors raised “plausible allegations that a conspiracy among the defendants existed,” and allowed antitrust and breach-of-contract claims to head to trial.
Investors say the banks used online chat rooms to set ISDAfix rates to the exact same quotes, causing billions in losses, which investors now want back. It's not the first time banks have come under fire in recent times.
Last year Barclays paid $120M to a group of cities and investors for similar charges and Citigroup shelled out $23M this year to settle claims it manipulated the yen Libor benchmark. [Bloomberg]
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