Compliance
Banking Giant Settles Libor-Rigging Suit For $100 Million
The settlement is the latest in a string of global lawsuits that banks have spent around $9 billion resolving.
HSBC will pay $100
million to terminate US litigation alleging the bank conspired to
rig Libor, the key benchmark interest rate.
HSBC is the fourth major lender to settle claims of manipulation
of Libor, or the London Interbank Offered Rate, which banks use
to set rates on hundreds of trillions of dollars of transactions
and to determine costs of borrowing from each other.
The settlement, which requires court approval, was disclosed in
filings late last week with the US District Court in Manhattan,
according to Reuters. HSBC denied wrongdoing, but
settled to avoid the risks, costs and distraction of litigation,
court papers reportedly show.
Family Wealth Report has contacted HSBC for comment and
will update accordingly.
To date, banks have spent around $9 billion in total to settle
Libor-fixing probes stemming from private litigation that began
in 2011 when investors including the city of Baltimore and Yale
University accused 16 lenders of conspiring to manipulate the
rate.
Last year, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority announced it
would phase out Libor by the end of 2021 due to a lack of
underlying data.
