By Nate Raymond
NEW YORK, March 29 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Fridaydismissed a "substantial portion" of claims facing a number ofbanks in a barrage of lawsuits accusing them of interest-raterigging.
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan ruledfor the banks, which include Bank of America Corp,JPMorgan Chase & Co and others, of allegedlymanipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate, commonly knownas Libor.
The judge granted the banks' motion to dismiss theplaintiffs' federal antitrust claims and partially dismissedtheir claims of commodities manipulation. She also dismissedracketeering and state-law claims.
The decision is a significant setback for privateplaintiffs, whose lawsuits had been consolidated before the NewYork judge as part of a multidistrict litigation proceeding.
In a 161-page opinion, Buchwald said she recognized herruling might be "unexpected," since several defendants had paidbillions of dollars in penalties to government regulatoryagencies.
But she said unlike government agencies, private plaintiffsneeded to meet many requirements under the statutes to bring acase.
"Therefore, although we are fully cognizant of thesettlements that several of the defendants here have enteredinto with government regulators, we find that only some of theclaims that plaintiffs have asserted may properly proceed," shewrote.
The lead lawyers for the plaintiffs, Bill Carmody of SusmanGodfrey and Michael Hausfeld of Hausfeld LLP, did notimmediately respond to requests for comment.
More than a dozen banks and brokerages are underinvestigation by regulators worldwide for manipulating benchmarkrates such as Libor, which have been the basis for more than$550 trillion in financial products.
Three banks have reached settlements with authorities todate. Most recently, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC agreed to pay $612 million to U.S. and British authorities. UBSAG agreed in December to pay $1.5 billion. Barclays agreed to pay $453 million in June.
Other defendants facing private lawsuits included CitigroupInc, Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings PLC, Royal Bank of Scotland,WestLB AG, and Royal Bank of Canada, among others.
Representatives for the various banks either did notimmediately respond to requests for comment or had no immediatecomment.
The cases are In Re: Libor-Based Financial InstrumentsAntitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court for the SouthernDistrict of New York, No. 11-md-2262.