Business Wire India

Stichting ELCO Foundation, a Dutch foundation, has filed a lawsuit in Dutch Court on behalf of institutional investors who executed more than $300 trillion in notional transaction value and who suffered losses in connection with alleged manipulation of LIBOR, EURIBOR and TIBOR interest rates during the period of 1 January 2001 until 30 June 2011.

 

On behalf of eligible market participants, the Foundation is asserting claims against UBS, Rabobank, Lloyds and ICAP (“Defendants”) and is seeking declaratory relief as the result of the alleged rate manipulation. The Foundation has decided to file this lawsuit after the Defendants rejected or ignored its invitation to discuss an amicable settlement.

 

Investors that traded LIBOR, EURIBOR and TIBOR related financial instruments can support the Foundation on “success fee only”, no up-front cost or risk, by contacting ELCO Investor Services LLC (EIS), who is retained to provide all administrative services, eligible claims evaluation and provide funding for the litigation.

 

Background

 

LIBOR, EURIBOR and TIBOR are interest rate benchmarks that are published daily at which banks are willing to borrow money from each other (without collateral). These rates are used worldwide as the basis for the value determination and settlement of various types of financial instruments and products, such as loans, options and interest rate derivatives.

 

In the lawsuit, the Claimants allege that the Defendants manipulated the EURIBOR, LIBOR and TIBOR interest rates (and a number of other interest rate benchmarks) for private gain and at the expense of unwitting trading partners, institutional investors and, collectively, market participants.

 

Rabobank, a Dutch company, has acknowledged the fraud by its employees and acknowledged that this fraud fell within the bandwidth of the work that these employees performed for Rabobank. It has escaped international prosecution by paying the Dutch public prosecution department and American and British authorities’ fines totalling EUR 774 million, including a fine of EUR 70 million paid to the Dutch Public Prosecutor; the highest fine ever paid to that regulator. The Dutch Public prosecutor established that the criminal offences were attributable to Rabobank and that Rabobank was responsible for its employees’ conduct and should have taken measures to prevent the criminal acts.

 

Regulatory Action

 

To date, 14 banks and brokers have paid regulatory fines of almost $10 billion related to manipulation of benchmark rates, including LIBOR, EURIBOR, and TIBOR.

 

US Civil Litigation

 

In the United States, civil/private antitrust litigation is proceeding on behalf of market participants damaged by the benchmark rates manipulations. The class action litigation covers damaged parties who transacted in impacted interest rate derivatives markets in the United States. Transactions that occurred outside of the US are not covered by the US class action and these transactions will not be eligible to receive any compensation pursuant to settlements and/or verdicts in the US class action litigations.

 

Objective and joining the Litigation

 

The Objective of the Foundation is to recover losses, suffered as a result of the Defendants’ alleged illegal rate manipulations, from the Defendants through settlement or court judgment.

 

Investors domiciled or with offices in Europe that traded Interest rate swaps, credit default swaps, forward rate agreements, swaptions, FX swaps, currency swaps, interest rate futures and other interest rate derivative products in different currencies in European Markets anytime from 1 January 2001 through 30 June 2011, should contact ELCO Investor Services (EIS) – for information, paperwork and evaluation of transaction eligibility.

 

About the Stichting ELCO Foundation

 

Stichting ELCO Foundation is an independent legal entity organized under Dutch law, established to protect the interests of stakeholders who suffered losses because of the benchmark rates manipulations orchestrated by the defendant banks and brokers for which the Dutch Courts have jurisdiction. The Foundation Chairman is Dick Bouma, a former Judge at the Court of Appeal in the Hague.

 

About the Law Firms representing the Foundation and Managing the Litigation

 

Lemstra Van der Korst is the Dutch law firm in charge of litigating this case on behalf of the Foundation and the investors supporting the Foundation. Lowey Dannenberg, PC, counsel in these matters in the United States, has unequaled expertise in commodity manipulation and derivatives antitrust litigation on behalf of market participants who were injured by the rigging of interbank lending rates.

 

About the ELCO Investor Services provider

 

ELCO Investor Services LLC (EIS) provides information, all administrative services, transaction evaluation and funding on behalf of the foundation.

 

 

 

 

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Source: Businesswire