Citigroup reaches $23 million 'ice breaker' yen Libor settlement

Citigroup INC (C.N) can pay $23 million to finish personal U.S. just proceeding claiming that it conspired to govern the yen Libor and Euroyen Tibor benchmark interest rates.

Lawyers for the litigant investors referred to as the accord AN "ice breaker" that might spur a number of the roughly twenty alternative bank defendants to settle.

Settlement papers were filed on weekday night within the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Court approval is needed.

RP Martin, a brokerage whose main assets square measure currently a part of BGC Partners INC (BGCP.O), conjointly settled, while not creating a payment. Citigroup and RP Martin united to join forces within the proceeding.

Danielle Romero-Apsilos, a Citigroup representative, same the New York-based bank is happy to settle. BGC, conjointly primarily based in the big apple, failed to straight off answer missive of invitation for comment.

Investors as well as the Calif. State Teachers' Retirement System and J. Kyle Bass' hedge fund Hayman Capital Management disc defendant banks of conspiring to rig yen Libor, Euroyen Tibor and Euroyen Tibor futures contracts to learn their own mercantilism positions from 2006 through a minimum of 2010.

Among the opposite defendants square measure many Japanese banks, as well as Mitsubishi UFJ money cluster INC (8306.T) and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings INC (8309.T), in addition as Barclays Plc (BARC.L), Deutsche Bank silver (DBKGn.DE), HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA.L), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and UBS silver (UBSG.VX).

Banks use the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and national capital Interbank Offered Rate (Tibor) to line the price of borrowing from one another. Libor is usually wont to set rates on such things as credit cards and mortgages.

The rate rigging scandal has light-emitting diode to billions of bucks of regulative fines against banks worldwide.

Former Citigroup merchant Tom Hayes is serving eleven years in jail once being found guilty in London last August of conspiring to rig Libor.

Nonetheless, the bank's "limited involvement" within the overall theme could have spurred its settlement, the plaintiffs' attorney Vincent Briganti same in AN interview.

"It is their position and our belief that there was no internal false news by any submitters," Briganti same. "An early settlement with Citigroup created sense."

In court papers, Briganti referred to as the accord AN "ice breaker" that "serves as a possible catalyst for alternative defendants to settle."

The proceeding is among many in Manhattan within which investors defendant banks of conspiring to rig rates or costs in money and commodities markets.