Wall Street Banks in Credit Swaps Settlement
October 01 2015 - 10:50AM
Dow Jones News
Wall Street's biggest banks have agreed to pay $1.86 billion to
settle accusations that they conspired to prevent competition in
the credit derivatives markets, according to plaintiff lawyers in
the private lawsuit.
Twelve banks and two industry groups have finalized the swaps
settlement, according to a statement by the plaintiffs' law firms
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and Pearson, Simon &
Warshaw LLP. That sum was slightly lower than the $1.87 billion
settlement that had been tentatively agreed a few weeks ago, as
earlier reported by the Journal.
The case represents the latest headache for banks still reeling
from regulatory actions and private lawsuits alleging they rigged
markets ranging from interest-rate benchmarks and foreign exchange
to the price of precious metals. Those cases have resulted in
billions of dollars in fines.
The defendants didn't admit fault in the civil case, said Daniel
Brockett, partner at Quinn Emanuel, in an interview. The case was
originally filed in 2013, but is now in a federal district court
for the Southern District of New York, where Mr. Brockett said it
would be certified for class-action status as part of the
settlement.
As a result, he said, between 9,000 and 12,000 institutions can
put in claims based on the amounts of credit swaps they had traded,
said Mr. Brockett. The plaintiffs included the Los Angeles County
Employees Retirement Association, Salix Capital U.S. Inc., Value
Recovery Fund LLC and the Essex Regional Retirement System.
The statement from the plaintiff lawyers called the settlement
agreement "one of the largest recoveries ever for plaintiffs in an
antitrust class action."
The credit derivatives lawsuit centered on whether the
defendants coordinated their efforts to delay or prevent exchanges
from trying to put the swaps contracts onto open, regulated
platforms where prices would be more transparent.
The defendants previously denied the accusations contained in
the lawsuit.
The defendant banks are: Bank of America Corp., Barclays PLC,
BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche
Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., HSBC Holdings PLC, J.P. Morgan
Chase Co., Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and UBS
Group AG.
The defendant industry groups are the International Swaps and
Derivatives Association and Markit Group Ltd.
Write to Katy Burne at katy.burne@wsj.com
Access Investor Kit for "Deutsche Bank AG"
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=DE0005140008
Access Investor Kit for "Barclays Plc"
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=GB0031348658
Access Investor Kit for "Barclays Plc"
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US06738E2046
Access Investor Kit for "CitiGroup Inc"
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US1729674242
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 01, 2015 10:35 ET (14:35 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2024 to Oct 2024
Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS)
Historical Stock Chart
From Oct 2023 to Oct 2024