USDC Southern District of New York
CPM represents more than a dozen public entities including the UC Regents, San Diego Association of Government, the County of Sacramento, the Counties of San Mateo and San Diego, the Cities of Richmond and Riverside, East Bay Municipal Utility District, and others who invested in financial instruments with interest rates that were set to the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). LIBOR is the world's benchmark rate used for setting interest rates on a wide range of financial instruments from car and home loans to municipal derivatives. LIBOR is set daily based on the borrowing costs reported by members of the British Bankers' Association. The complaints allege that the member banks conspired to suppress LIBOR, both to reduce the amounts they were required to pay on LIBOR-based transactions, and to increase their perceived credit strength in the market. Plaintiffs invested significant sums in LIBOR-based financial instruments such as interest rate swaps and corporate securities, the rates of return of which were tied to LIBOR, and earned less on those investments as a result of the alleged suppression of LIBOR.
