Case Description
Forty plaintiff states reached a $68 million settlement with UBS for fraudulent conduct involving interest rate manipulation that had a significant impact on consumers and financial markets around the world. UBS’ fraudulent conduct involved the manipulation of LIBOR (the London Interbank Offered Rate). LIBOR is a benchmark interest rate that affects financial instruments worth trillions of dollars and has a far-reaching impact on global markets and consumers. The states allege that UBS misrepresented the integrity of the LIBOR benchmark by concealing, misrepresenting, and failing to disclose that UBS at times made USD LIBOR submissions to avoid negative publicity and protect the reputation of the bank, and that UBS made LIBOR submissions to benefit its own derivative trading positions. This led to millions in unjust gains for UBS when governmental entities and not-for-profit organizations entered into swaps and other financial instruments with UBS — without knowing that UBS and other banks on the USD-LIBOR-setting panel were manipulating their LIBOR submissions. Governmental and not-for-profit entities with LIBOR-linked swaps and other financial instruments with UBS were eligible to receive a distribution from the settlement fund. The states have entered into settlements addressing the same conduct with Citibank (June 2018), Deutsche Bank (October 2017) and Barclays Bank (August 2016) for a total of $488 million.