Alaska Elec. Pension Fund v. Bank of Am. Corp.

306 F. Supp. 3d 610
District Court, S.D. Illinois·Decided February 2, 2018·No. 14–CV–7126 (JMF)·Published·Cited by 10 cases

Opinion

JESSE M. FURMAN, United States District Judge *615In this putative class action, familiarity with which is presumed, Plaintiffs-several *616institutional investors-allege that Defendants, some of the world's largest banks, illegally manipulated the U.S. Dollar ISDAfix ("ISDAfix"), a benchmark interest rate incorporated into a broad range of financial derivatives. See generally Alaska Elec. Pension Fund v. Bank of Am. Corp. , 175 F.Supp.3d 44 (S.D.N.Y. 2016).1 Defendants previously moved to dismiss Plaintiffs' claims pursuant to Rule 12(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In an Opinion and Order entered on March 28, 2016, the Court largely denied that motion, dismissing only a narrow slice of Plaintiffs' state-law claims. See id. Most relevant for present purposes, the Court held that Plaintiffs had standing to bring their claims under the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 et seq. -specifically, "antitrust standing." See id. at 56-61. Thereafter, Plaintiffs filed the Second Consolidated Amended Class Action Complaint. (Docket No. 387 ("SAC") ).

Defendants now bring another Rule 12(b)(6) motion. (Docket No. 396). Relying primarily on two Second Circuit decisions decided after this Court's prior Opinion, Defendants contend that Plaintiffs lack antitrust standing with respect to a subset of the antitrust claims alleged in the SAC. (See Docket No. 397 ("Defts.' Joint Mem."), at 1-4). Two Defendants-Nomura Securities and Wells Fargo-move separately to dismiss Plaintiffs' state-law breach-of-contract and unjust-enrichment claims against them. (Docket Nos. 398 & 401). Finally, responding in part to Nomura Securities's motion, Plaintiffs move to amend their complaint to add Nomura Global Financial Products, Inc. ("NGFP") as a Defendant. (Docket No. 417 ("Pls' Mot. to Amend") ). For the reasons discussed below, Defendants' joint motion to dismiss is DENIED; Nomura Securities's motion is GRANTED; Plaintiffs' motion to amend is also DENIED; and Wells Fargo's motion is DENIED in part and GRANTED in part.

BACKGROUND

The relevant background is set forth at length in the Court's prior Opinion and Order, see Alaska Elec. Pension Fund , 175 F.Supp.3d at 50-52, and will not be repeated here. To the extent these motions implicate additional facts, laid out below, those facts are taken from the SAC, documents referenced therein, and matters of which the Court can take judicial notice. For purposes of this motion, the SAC's allegations are assumed to be true and are viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs as the non-moving parties. See, e.g. , Kleinman v. Elan Corp. , 706 F.3d 145, 152 (2d Cir. 2013) ; Chambers v. Time Warner, Inc. , 282 F.3d 147, 153 (2d Cir. 2002).

In brief, Plaintiffs bring claims under the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 et seq. , and, under state law, for breach of contract and unjust enrichment. They allege that Defendants-large banks that dominate the market for interest-rate derivatives and set ISDAfix rates (collectively, the "Defendant Banks"), and ICAP Markets LLC ("ICAP"), an interdealer broker that served, until January 26, 2014, as the administrator in charge of setting the ISDAfix rates-engaged in a longstanding conspiracy to manipulate ISDAfix rates so as to extract higher profits from interest rate swaps and "swaptions." (See SAC

*617¶¶ 1-25). Specifically, Plaintiffs allege that the Defendant Banks conspired by (1) agreeing to "rubberstamp" the ISDAfix reference rate posted daily by ICAP at 11:02 a.m. (id. ¶¶ 14-15, 115); (2) manipulating the reference rate itself by flooding the swaps market with interdealer transactions just before 11 a.m. to achieve the desired rate-a process known as "banging the close" (id. ¶¶ 158, 160-61); and (3) having ICAP simply set the reference rate at a predetermined level when "banging the close" failed to achieve the desired rate. (Id. ¶¶ 150 n.70).

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Alaska Elec. Pension Fund v. Bank of Am. Corp., 306 F. Supp. 3d 610 (S.D. Ill. 2018).

306 F. Supp. 3d 610 (Alaska Elec. Pension Fund v. Bank of Am. Corp.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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