Seven of the largest banks in the world agreed to pay 324 million dollars in the framework of a compromise, after the submission of a claim against them in the united states. The accusation is that “cooked” an index of interest rates used in the eur 533 trillion dollar derivatives market.
The compromise was made public on Tuesday, and requires approval of the court. The private lawsuit against the banks, Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse Group, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group.
A number of pension funds and municipal authorities have accused 14 banks, including those participating in the compromise, that they conspired to manipulate the index ISDAfix for their own benefit from 2009 at least until 2012.
Companies and investors use ISDAfix to price transactions, swaps, commercial mortgage real estate loans, and structured securities.
The illegal activities included the implementation of rapid transactions before the definition of the index each day, with the result that the british brokerage firm ICAP Plc to delay the trade until the ISDAfix where they wanted and to set the pointer at levels that do not reflect market activity.
Under the settlement, JPMorgan will pay $ 52 million, the Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and RBS $ 50 million, Citigroup $ 42 million, and Barclays $ 30 million.
The rest of the defendants are BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs Group, HSBC Holdings, Morgan Stanley, Nomura Holdings, UBS, Wells Fargo & Co., and ICAP.
Representatives of BNP Paribas, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and UBS have refused to comment on the news. The other defendants did not respond to the request for a statement.
This private lawsuit is only one of the many that are pending in the federal court of Manhattan, in the context of which banks are accused of manipulating benchmarks, pricing, securities, or commodity prices.
Source
The seven large banks that will pay for the manipulation of the index of 533 trillion.
—