* BP, Shell, Statoil in EU oil price probe
* First lawsuit seeks class-action status
By Bernard Vaughan and Tom Polansek
NEW YORK/CHICAGO May 23 (Reuters) - A Chicago-basedcommodities trading firm has filed suit against three of theworld's largest oil companies, accusing them of colluding to fixoil prices after European authorities opened an investigationlast week.
Prime International Trading Ltd, which trades crude oil andother commodities, filed the proposed class-action lawsuitagainst BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Plc andStatoil on Wednesday, accusing the firms ofmisreporting trades in North Sea Brent, the oil benchmark whichsets the price of about 70 percent of the world's crude.
The lawsuit is seeking civil damages on the heels of aEuropean Commission probe into the reporting of false prices toprice-setting agency Platts, a unit of McGraw-Hill.
Platts' information is used to price oil contracts,including Brent.
None of the oil companies responded to phone calls andemails seeking comment on the lawsuit.
No charges have yet been brought by European authorities,and the oil companies have said they are cooperating with theinvestigation. Statoil said last week the suspected violationsmay have been ongoing since 2002.
"If it is found there was wrongdoing by the oil companies,the class-action suit would almost certainly significantly driveup the cost of any settlement," said Craig Pirrong, a Universityof Houston professor of finance and a commodities expert.
Authorities last week raided the London bureau of Platts andthe offices of the three oil majors named in the lawsuit.
NATURAL GAS CASE
The lawsuit accused the oil companies of reporting"inaccurate, misleading and false information" about Brent crudeto Platts, and said it plans to include up to 50 otherdefendants who have not been named, but may also haveparticipated in the alleged oil price manipulation.
Phone calls and emails to the oil companies named in thesuit were not immediately returned on Thursday.
At Prime's office in Chicago, located on the 13th floor ofan office building next door to the Chicago Board of Tradebuilding, a CBOT floor clerk said that no one was available todiscuss the case.
Vincent Briganti, who works for Lowey Dannenberg Cohen &Hart which is representing the plaintiffs, declined to commenton the particulars of the case. The law firm was one of thecompanies that helped secure a $101 million settlement in aclass-action suit related to the manipulation of U.S. naturalgas price indexes a decade ago in the wake of the Enron scandal.
Earlier this week, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, who chairs theSenate's energy committee, asked the Justice Department to jointhe probe into potential oil market manipulation, byinvestigating whether it had boosted fuel prices for U.S.consumers.
"Efforts to manipulate European oil indices, if proven, mayhave already impacted U.S. consumers and businesses, because ofthe interrelationships among world oil markets and hedgingpractices," Wyden wrote in a letter to U.S. Attorney GeneralEric Holder.
BP (BP.)
