Barclays settled the first UK civil lawsuit filed over allegations the bank manipulated Libor, weeks before the trial was scheduled to start.
Barclays agreed to restructure the debt of Graiseley Properties Ltd., which filed the lawsuit, as part of the settlement, Barclays said in a statement on Monday. The company, which operates nursing homes in the UK, was seeking to rescind interest-rate hedging contracts linked to Libor.
The settlement spares the bank a trial that would have featured testimony from former Barclays officials, including ex- Chief Executive Officer Bob Diamond. Banks including Barclays, UBS AG and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc have been fined a total of about $6 billion for manipulating the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and related benchmarks that underpinned about $300 trillion worth of transactions worldwide.
"In response to discussions with Graiseley, in order to support the ongoing viability of Graiseley's care home business, the parties have agreed to a commercial restructuring of Graiseley's debt, which reflects the impact of changes in conditions in this sector over the last few years," London- based Barclays said in a statement. "Graiseley has withdrawn the litigation."
The case has featured a variety of correspondence from company employees that gave an inside glimpse in the bank's Libor operations.
At a hearing last month, lawyers for Graiseley introduced a 2007 e-mail from Jerry Del Missier, the former chief operating officer of Barclays, as a "fantasy."
Del Missier and Diamond both resigned in the wake of the Libor scandal in 2012.
Guardian owes the London-based bank about 70 million pounds ($116 million) over the interest-rate swaps. The derivatives, which were designed to lower company's exposure to rising interest rates.
