NEW YORK, April 29 (Reuters) - Two new defendants, MercuriaEnergy Trading SA and Hess Energy Trading Co, have been added toa lawsuit accusing BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and several other companies of conspiring to manipulate Brentcrude oil prices.
In an amended complaint filed late Monday night in the U.S.District Court in Manhattan, where 14 lawsuits have beencombined, the defendants were accused of having monopolized andconspired since 2002 to fix the Brent crude market.
The plaintiffs, including several individuals and firms thattraded the oil, accused the defendants of deliberately reportinginaccurate or false prices, "spoof" orders and transactions with"aberrant" pricing, as well as conducting illegal "wash sales"designed to affect prices without exposing participants tomarket risk.
Brent crude is a North Sea oil benchmark used for roughlytwo-thirds of the world's internationally traded crude oilsupplies, and is used to set prices for such things as gasolineand heating oil.
Mercuria is a unit of Switzerland-based Mercuria EnergyGroup Ltd, which agreed on March 19 to buy JPMorgan Chase & Co's physical commodities business for $3.5 billion.
Hess Energy Trading is also known as Hetco, and is a jointventure between Hess Corp, which holds a 50 percentstake, and former Goldman Sachs partners Stephen Hendeland Stephen Semlitz.
In March 2013, Hess said it would divest Hetco as part of aplan to shed retail, trading and other businesses and focus onexploration and production.
Mercuria did not immediately respond to a request forcomment. Patrick Scanlan, an outside spokesman for Hetco,declined to comment.
Among the other defendants previously alleged to have beeninvolved in price manipulation were Statoil ASA, MorganStanley and the energy trading firm Vitol SA.
The case is In re: North Sea Brent Crude Oil FuturesLitigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York,No. 13-md-02475. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by DavidGregorio)