Manipulation of Libor?

If you are a citizen of Canada and you purchased a financial instrument from any of the following banks or you traded Eurodollar futures contracts or options on futures contracts linked to Libor, you may be entitled to compensation stemming from the manipulation of Libor, a key interest rate:

On June 27, 2012, Barclays Bank announced that it agreed to pay a $453 million fine to settle allegations that it manipulated Libor. As part of the U.S. and U.K. settlements, Barclays admitted to fixing Libor and Euribor (the Euro based equivalent of Libor) as early as 2005. The now former CEO of Barclays testified to Parliament last week that Barclays manipulated Libor, apologized and said 14 Barclays traders were involved. LIBOR, which is set by the British Bankers Association and its member banks, is crucial to the operation of global financial markets because it is the primary benchmark for short term interest rates. Libor is an interest rate based on the rates that designated banks for each currency would have to pay for an unsecured loan for each designated maturity period.

Based on the Barclays settlement, it is believed that Barclays and numerous other banks knowingly understated their true borrowing costs to the BBA in order to cause Libor to be artificially low. This alleged manipulation of Libor would have allowed the banks to pay artificially low interest rates to purchasers of Libor-based financial instruments thereby garnering the banks enormous profits, potentially reaching into the billions of dollars. Also, in 2008, it is believed that many of the banks were facing different financial stresses due to the financial crisis, but they submitted Libor rates to the BBA that did not vary significantly and that were lower than they should have been. If Libor had not been manipulated, it is believed that the rates reported by the banks should have risen. By allegedly falsely reporting artificially low borrowing rates to the BBA, it is believed that the banks not only profited from their lending and trading activities, but they also gave the appearance that they were more financially stable than they actually were.

Numerous government regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Department of Justice, the Japanese Financial Supervisory Agency, the United Kingdom's Financial Services Authority, and the Canadian Competition Bureau are continuing to investigate the reporting practices of the banks reporting Libor rates during the relevant period.

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