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US: Alaska fund becomes latest to launch benchmark-rigging legal action

By  |  September 7, 2014

An Alaska pension fund has reportedly filed a lawsuit against 13 major global banks accusing the groups of manipulating the ISDAfix benchmark rates.

Reports say Alaska Electrical Pension Fund has filed a lawsuit in the US against financial groups including JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, HSBC and others, accusing the banks of colluding to manipulate the benchmark that is used to set interest rate derivatives, real estate mortgages and structured debt securities, reports say.

The lawsuit alleges that the banks executed trades just before the benchmark was set, allowing the companies delay the setting of the benchmark to have enough time to fix it.

According to reports, the lawsuit claims the collusion affected about $170 trillion worth of financial instruments that depend on the ISDAfix rates.

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