Banks including Bank of America Corp., Barclays Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. won dismissal of antitrust lawsuits by plaintiffs claiming they were harmed by the rigging of the London interbank offered rate.
In more than two dozen interrelated cases before U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in New York, the banks were alleged to have conspired to depress Libor by understating their borrowing costs, thereby lowering their interest expenses on products tied to the rates.
While potential damages were estimated to be in the billions of dollars, the judge ruled the cases must be dismissed because of the inability of litigants to show they were harmed. Buchwald, whose March 29 ruling allowed some commodities- manipulations claims to proceed to a trial, said that, while private plaintiffs must show actual harm, her ruling didn’t impede governments from pursuing antitrust claims tied to attempts to manipulate Libor.
Buchwald dismissed the antitrust claims because the plaintiffs didn’t allege enough facts to show that they were harmed by the alleged misconduct. The judge dismissed some commodities-manipulation claims because they centered on transactions that were too long ago. Other such claims may proceed, she said.
Libor is a key metric for setting interest rates for trillions of dollars in financial instruments. Global authorities have been investigating claims that more than a dozen banks altered submissions used to set benchmarks such as Libor to profit from bets on interest-rate derivatives or make the lenders’ finances appear healthier.
Lawrence Grayson, a spokesman for Charlotte-based Bank of America, and Kristin Lemkau, a spokeswoman for New York-based JPMorgan, declined to comment on the ruling.
Michael Hausfeld, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, didn’t return an e-mail seeking comment on the decision.
The consolidated case is In re Libor-Based Financial Instruments Antitrust Litigation, 11-md-02262, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).