In Re Libor: More Light, Please! — Questions and Observations as the Decision Dismissing Antitrust Claims for Lack of Antitrust Injury Now Faces Appellate Review

Posted by Social Science Research Network

In Re Libor: More Light, Please! — Questions and Observations as the Decision Dismissing Antitrust Claims for Lack of Antitrust Injury Now Faces Appellate Review–  Richard Wolfram, Esq.

Abstract: A key ruling by a New York federal district court almost two years ago, in In re LIBOR-Based Financial Instruments Antitrust Litigation, can now finally proceed on appeal, and the implications are significant both in the law and for a number of financial markets dependent on benchmark mechanisms.

The district court ruled in March 2013 that alleged collusion by the defendant banks in setting a global interest rate benchmark – the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR – may have violated antitrust law but did not cause antitrust injury; it therefore dismissed antitrust claims filed by various investors, who claimed injury from the alleged concerted suppression of LIBOR, on the grounds that they lacked standing.