Fannie Mae Sues UBS, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, & Deutsche Bank, & Others for $800M Over Libor

Fannie Mae is suing nine banks over their alleged collusion in manipulating interest rates involving the London Interbank Offered Rate. The defendants are Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Credit Suisse, UBS (UBS), Deutsche Bank (DB), Citigroup (C), Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, & Rabobank. The US government controlled-mortgage company wants over $800M in damages.

Regulators here and in Europe have been looking into claims that a lot of banks manipulated Libor and other rate benchmarks to up their profits or seem more financially fit than they actually were. In its securities fraud lawsuit, Fannie Mae contends that the defendants made representations and promises regarding Libor’s legitimacy that were “false” and that this caused the mortgage company to suffer losses in mortgages, swaps, mortgage securities, and other transactions. Fannie May believes that its losses in interest-rate swaps alone were about $332 million.

UBS, Barclays, Rabobank, and Royal Bank of Scotland have already paid over $3.6 billion in fines to settle with regulators and the US Department of Justice to settle similar allegations. The banks admitted that they lowballed their Libor quotes during the 2008 economic crisis so they would come off as more creditworthy and healthier. Individual traders and brokers have also been charged.

Libor
Libor is used to establish interest rates on student loans, derivatives, mortgages, credit card, car loans, and other matters and underpins hundreds of trillions of dollars in transactions. The rates are determined through a process involving banks being polled on borrowing costs in different currencies over different timeframes. Responses are then averaged to determine the rates that become the benchmark for financial products.

Also a defendant in Fannie Mae’s securities case is the British Bankers’ Association, which oversees the process of Libor rate creation.

Earlier this year, government-backed Freddie Mac (FMCC) sued over a dozen large banks and the British Bankers’ Association also for allegedly manipulating interest rates and causing it to lose money on interest-rates swaps. Defendants named by the government-backed home loan mortgage corporation included Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, and UBS.

Freddie Mac Sues Big Banks, The Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2013

Fannie Mae Sues Banks for $800 Million Over Libor Rigging, Bloomberg, November 1, 2013

More Blog Posts:
Sonoma County Files Securities Lawsuit Over Libor Banking Debacle, Institutional Investor Securities Blog, July 2, 2013

Barclays LIBOR Manipulation Scam Places Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, and UBS Under The Investigation Microscope, Institutional Investor Securities Blog, July 16, 2012