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NEW YORK, June 17 (Reuters) - HSBC Holdings Plc will pay $35 million to end private U.S. antitrust litigationclaiming that it harmed investors by conspiring with other banksto manipulate the yen Libor and Euroyen Tibor benchmark interestrates.
Papers outlining the preliminary settlement were filed onFriday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Court approvalis required.
The accord came 4-1/2 months after Citigroup Inc reached a similar $23 million settlement, in what lawyers forthe plaintiff investors called an "ice breaker" that might spursome of the roughly 20 other bank defendants to settle.
An HSBC spokesman did not immediately respond to requestsfor comment.
Investors including the California State Teachers'Retirement System and J. Kyle Bass' hedge fund Hayman CapitalManagement LP accused banks of conspiring to rig yen Libor,Euroyen Tibor and Euroyen Tibor futures contracts to benefittheir own trading positions from 2006 through at least 2010.
Other named defendants include Japanese banks such asMitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc and Sumitomo MitsuiTrust Holdings Inc, as well as Barclays Plc,Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co and UBSAG.
Banks use the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) andTokyo Interbank Offered Rate (Tibor) to set costs of borrowingfrom each other.
Libor is often used to set rates on such things as creditcards and mortgages.
The Manhattan federal court is home to many lawsuits inwhich investors have accused banks of conspiring to rig rates orprices in various financial and commodities markets.
Rate rigging has led to billions of dollars of regulatoryfines against banks worldwide. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by AlanCrosby)
