After his acquittal in the Libor scandal, a former Deutsche Bank trader has sued his former employer for $150 million in damages. The bank made him a scapegoat in the rate-rigging scandal to protect its executives, according to the lawsuit he filed with a New York court. The bank made false allegations before the US Department of Justice in order to bring the trader to justice, the lawsuit states. Deutsche Bank said it would vigorously defend itself against these allegations. The trader, who hasn’t worked at Deutsche Bank since 2008, was found guilty by a New York court in 2016 of manipulating the Libor reference interest rate. According to the verdict, he and another London trader colluded with other market participants between 2005 and 2011 to illegally influence the Libor rate in their favor. The trader appealed the verdict and was acquitted in the next instance in January. At least 16 financial institutions worldwide were involved in the Libor scandal. Individual traders had agreed to set the interest rate in order to steer it in the desired direction and to reap trading profits. On the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and similar reference rates, transactions amounting to many hundreds of trillions of dollars are linked daily, which means that even small movements can result in large trading profits. Many banks have already reached settlements worth billions with various authorities.
Libor scandal – Former trader sues Deutsche Bank – Economy
