Few financial scandals have had more implications than the one tied to the London Interbank Offered Rate (libor). A number used in the pricing of at least $300 trillion in securities was found to have been manipulated for years. Three banks have paid serious fines: rbs, ubs and Barclays. Careers have been shattered. Yet an unresolved question remains: was there a violation of law? The answer is, largely, no, according to a 161-page opinion released on March 29th by Naomi Reice Buchwald, a federal judge in the southern district of New York. Most of the American civil litigation has been consolidated in her court and the sheer scope of the opinion is an implicit acknowledgment that the conclusions will be carefully reviewed. In part, this is because it encompasses so much: the structure of an international component of domestic financial markets, the limits of American law and the time constraints for filing claims. But a larger factor is simply the size of the potential claims, which are substantial.
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