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US: Barclays must face electricity price-fixing lawsuit

By  |  February 29, 2016

US judge ordered Barclays Plc to face a proposed class-action lawsuit in which a California water utility accused the British bank of illegally manipulating electricity prices in the western United States, causing purchasers to overpay.

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    US District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan on Monday said the Merced Irrigation District can pursue two claims that Barclays violated federal antitrust law, and one claim that the bank violated a California unfair competition law.

    In July 2013, Barclays was fined $435 million by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for allegedly manipulating electricity prices in California and other western US states from November 2006 to December 2008.

    Merced alleged similar violations, and Marrero said the allegations “plainly suggest Barclays’s conduct was intended to artificially inflate or deflate market prices and constrain the market for other buyers and sellers of electricity.”

    The judge dismissed two other claims raised by Merced.

    Full Content: Reuters

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