August 25, 2023
A group of investors led by the $40.1 billion Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System, Des Moines, has reached a $499 million partial settlement in an antitrust lawsuit alleging that Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, UBS, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Credit Suisse, Bank of America and bank joint venture EquiLend participated in a group boycott to stop the modernization of the securities lending market.
The partial settlement will leave Bank of America as the sole remaining defendant in the case, according to a closed session board meeting of one of the named plaintiffs, the $73.6 billion Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association , Pasadena, Calif. The case is being heard in U.S. District Court in New York by Judge Katherine Polk Failla. Combined with the $81 million settlement previously signed with Credit Suisse in 2022, the partial settlement will result in a total of $580 million in cash payments to the class.
As part of the current settlement, EquiLend has agreed to specific reforms to prevent the sort of collusion and market abuse that occurred in this case as well as to provide cooperation with the ongoing lawsuit against Bank of America, said a news release from plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll.
Read Investors Reach Partial Settlement with Banks in Antitrust Suit.