A law firm representing a number of claimants in the Libor rate-rigging case that shook the international banking industry announced that it has reached a $120-million Settlement with Barclays, one of the main participants in the scandal.
Hausfeld, an international legal firm that specializes in litigation cases, said in a statement that besides the financial compensation, Barclays has agreed to cooperate with the group of plaintiffs, jointly called Over-the-Counter Plaintiffs, in their litigation against other banks that took part in the manipulation practice.
A Four-Year Battle
The law firm’s chairman, Michael D. Hausfeld, commented: “The settlement with Barclays, which comes over four years after the case was first filed, not only represents an important breakthrough in resolving this long-running litigation, it also provides significant monetary recovery and cooperation that will benefit the victims of the banks’ conduct.”
Just last month, Barclays, along with HSBC and RBS, was defeated by another group of plaintiffs, including pension funds, international corporates and hedge funds. The three banks agreed to pay in excess of $900 million to that plaintiff group.
Libor fallout continues to be felt
Barclays was implicated in manipulating Libor four years ago and has since then admitted to wrongdoing of some of its employees and agreed to pay almost $2.5 billion in fines and settlements with UK and US financial market authorities.
After the rate-rigging practice became public, in 2011, a number of organizations and even cities, such as Baltimore, filed lawsuits against some of the world’s biggest banks for deliberately manipulating the London interbank lending rate during the financial crisis.
