UBS will pay a total of $68 million to settle claims from 39 states and the District of Columbia that the firm manipulated the London interbank offered rate, according to a settlement agreement reached Friday.
According to the settlement agreement, UBS concealed that it had made U.S. dollar LIBOR submissions to avoid negative publicity and protect the reputation of the bank, and that UBS made yen LIBOR submissions to benefit the bank's derivative trading positions.
UBS "made millions in unjust gains when government entities and not-for-profit organizations entered into swaps and other financial instruments with UBS without knowing that UBS and other banks on the U.S. dollar LIBOR setting panel were manipulating their LIBOR submissions," Ohio Attorney General Michael DeWine, one of the 40 attorneys general that settled with UBS, said in a news release.
A claims administrator will determine how much affected investors receive from the settlement, according to the agreement.
UBS neither admitted nor denied the claims made by the state attorneys general.
In a statement, UBS said, "We are pleased to have resolved this legacy matter related to events that are almost a decade old. It was achieved with the best interests of our shareholders in mind."
The states involved in the settlement along with Ohio are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
