By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Barclays Plc agreed to pay $94 million to settle U.S. antitrust litigation in which investors accused 11 banks of conspiring to manipulate the benchmark European Interbank Offered Rate (Euribor) and related derivatives.
The London-based bank is the first defendant to settle, according to court papers filed late on Friday in federal court in Manhattan.
Kenneth Feinberg, a prominent mediator who helped broker the accord, said in an affidavit "this first and early settlement with Barclays provides plaintiffs with a precedent and settlement structure that may encourage other interested defendants to settle."
Barclays' preliminary settlement requires court approval.
Other defendants include BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc, Credit Agricole SA, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Rabobank BA, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Societe Generale SA and UBS AG. The electronic broker-dealer ICAP Plc is also a defendant.
More From This Section
Barclays spokesman Mark Lane declined to comment. Representatives for the other defendants declined to comment or did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The plaintiffs included the California State Teachers' Retirement System, or CalSTRS, one of the world's largest public pension funds.
Vincent Briganti, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, called the Barclays settlement an "ice-breaker," and said his clients are focused on pursuing their remaining claims.
Euribor is the euro-denominated equivalent to Libor, a benchmark for setting rates on hundreds of trillions of dollars of debt, including for credit cards, student loans and mortgages. Banks use such rates to determine the cost of borrowing from one another.
The defendants were accused in the proposed class action of violating the Sherman Act, a U.S. antitrust law, by conspiring to rig Euribor and fix prices of Euribor-based derivatives from June 2005 to March 2011 to benefit their own positions.
Barclays reached $453 million in settlements with U.S. and British regulators in June 2012, admitting it manipulated Libor and Euribor.
Several other defendants have reached similar settlements, including Deutsche Bank's $2.5 billion accord in April and UBS' $1.5 billion accord in December 2012.
The European Union in December 2013 fined several banks a combined 1.7 billion euros - $2.3 billion at the time - to settle rate-rigging charges.
Feinberg has overseen programs to compensate victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and a program to compensate owners of General Motors Co vehicles with defective ignition switches.
The case is Sullivan et al v Barclays Plc, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 13-02811.
(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Tom Brown)