RBS Securities

Securities Lawsuit Accuses Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse, and Other Banks of Manipulating ISDAfix

Published on: September 4, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Alaska Electrical Pension Fund is suing several banks for allegedly conspiring to manipulate ISDAfix, which is the benchmark for establishing the rates for interest rate derivatives and other financial instruments in the $710 trillion derivatives market. The pension fund contends that the banks worked together to set the benchmark at artificial levels so that they could manipulate investor payments in the derivative. The Alaska fund says that this impacted financial instruments valued at trillions of dollars.

The defendants are:

• Bank of America Corp. (BAC)

RBS Securities’ Japan Unit to Pay $50M Criminal Fine Over Libor Manipulation

Published on: January 7, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A US judge has ordered Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc’s (RBS) banking unit in Japan to pay a $50 million fine over its involvement in manipulating LIBOR. RBS Securities Japan Ltd. entered a guilty plea to wire fraud as part of its parent company’s $612 million securities settlements to resolve civil and criminal charges over the rate manipulation.

On December 31, RBS Securities Japan and the US government turned in a joint court filing stating that from at least between 2006 and 2010 some of the bank’s traders tried to move Libor in a manner that would benefit their positions. The attempted manipulation of over a hundred Yen Libor submissions was reportedly involved.

Authorities say that as a result traders profited at counterparties’ expense. The filing noted that investigations uncovered wrongful behavior involving Libor submission for the yen and another currency and that about 20 RBS traders, including four at the RBS unit in Japan were involved.

Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland Settle & Others for More than $2.3B with European Union Over Interbank Offered Rates

Published on: December 24, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Deutsche Bank (DB) has announced that as part of a collective settlement, it will pay $992,329,000 to settle investigations involving interbank offered rates, including probes into the trading of Euro interest rate derivatives and interest rate derivatives for the Yen.

Also paying fines as part of the collective settlement are Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) which will pay $535,173,000 and Society General SA (SLE), which will pay $610,454,000, and three others. In total, the financial firms will pay a record $2.3 billion.

The fines are for manipulating the Euribor and the Yen London interbank offered rate. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said that regulators would continue to look into other cases linked to currency trading and Libor. Also related to these probes, Citigroup (C) has been fined $95,811,100, while JPMorgan (JPM) is paying $108M. Because of Citigroup’s cooperation into this matter, it avoided paying an additional $74.6 million. The two firms reportedly admitted that they were part of the Yen Libor financial derivatives cartel.

RBS Securities Inc. Settles SEC’s Subprime RMBS Lawsuit for $150M

Published on: November 20, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

RBS Securities Inc., which is a Royal Bank of Scotland PLC. Subsidiary (RBS), has agreed to pay $150 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it misled investors in a $2.2 billion subprime residential mortgage-backed security offering in 2007. The money will be used to pay back investors who were harmed.

The SEC claims the RBS said that the loans backing the offering “generally” satisfied underwriting guidelines even though close to 30% of them actually were so far off from meeting them that they should not have been part of the offering. As lead underwriters, RBS (then known as Greenwich Capital Markets,) had only (and briefly) looked at a small percentage of the loans while receiving $4.4 million as the transaction’s lead underwriter.

SEC Division Enforcement co-director George Cannellos said that inadequate due diligence by RBS was involved. The Commissions also says that because RBS was in a hurry to meet a deadline established by the seller, the firm misled investors about not just the quality of the loans but also regarding their chances for repayment.

Barclays LIBOR Manipulation Scam Places Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, and UBS Under The Investigation Microscope

Published on: July 16, 2012 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The London Inter-Bank Offer Rate (LIBOR) manipulation scandal involving Barclays Bank (BCS-P) has now opened up a global probe, as investigators from the United States, Europe, Canada, and Asia try to figure out exactly what happened. While Barclays may have the settled the allegations for $450 million with the UK’s Financial Services Authority, the US Department of Justice, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, now a number of other financial firms are under investigation including UBS AG (UBS), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse Group (CS), Citigroup Inc., Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, HSBC Holdings PLC (HBC-PA), Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LYG), Rabobank Groep NV, Mizuho Financial Group Inc. (MFG), Societe Generale SA, RP Martin Holdings Ltd., Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., and Royal Bank of Scotland PLC (RBS).

In the last few weeks, the accuracy of LIBOR, which is the average borrowing cost when banks in Britain loan money to each other, has come into question in the wake of allegations that Barclays and other big banks have been rigging it by submitting artificially low borrowing estimates. Considering that LIBOR is a benchmark interest rates that affects hundreds of trillions of dollars in financial contracts, including floating-rate mortgages, interest-rate swaps, and corporate loans globally, the fact that this type of financial fudging may be happening on a wide scale basis is disturbing.

“It’s my understanding the total financial paper effected by LIBOR is close to $500 trillion dollars. This is a half-quadrillion dollars if you are wondering about the next step up,” said Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas, LTD, LLP Founder and Institutional Investment Fraud Attorney William Shepherd.

$629M Mortgage-Backed Securities Lawsuit Blames RBS Securities and Other Financial Firms For Bankruptcy of Western Corporate Federal Credit Union in 2009

Published on: July 26, 2011 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The National Credit Union Administration has filed a $629 million securities fraud lawsuit against RBS Securities, Wachovia Mortgage Loan Trust LLC, Nomura Home Equity Loan Inc., Greenwich Capital Acceptance Inc., Lares Asset Securitization Inc., IndyMac MBS Inc., and American Home Mortgage Assets LLC. The NCUA is accusing the financial firms of underwriting and selling subpar mortgage-backed securities, which caused Western Corporate Federal Credit Union to file for bankruptcy, as well as of allegedly violating state and federal securities laws.

The defendants are accused of misrepresenting the nature of the bonds and causing WesCorp to think the risks involved were low, which was not the case at all. NCUA says that the originators of the securities “systematically disregarded” the Offering Documents’ underwriting standards. The agency blames broker-dealers and securities firms for the demise of five large corporate credit union: WesCorp, US Central, Members United Corporate, Southwest Corporate, and Constitution Corporate.

Last month, NCUA filed separate complaints against JPMorgan Chase Securities and RBS Securities. The union believes that those it considers responsible for the issues plaguing wholesale credit unions should cover the losses that retail credit unions are having to cover. NCUA says it may file up to 10 mortgage-backed securities complaints seeking to recover billions of dollars in damages. As of now, it is seeking to recover $1.5 billion.

NCUA acts as the “liquidating agent” for failed credit unions. Wholesale credit unions provide electronic payments, check clearing, investments and other services to retail credit unions, which actively work with borrowers.

NCUA sues JPMorgan and RBS to recover losses from failed institutions, Housing Wire, June 20, 2011

NCUA seeks $629M in damages from RBS Securities, Credit Union National Association, July 19, 2011

Feds Sue Bankers Over Fall in Bonds, The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2011