U.S. expects more Libor charges and plea talks with bank - prosecutor
By Nate Raymond
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A sprawling, global investigation into whether banks manipulated Libor benchmark interest rates may result in U.S. charges against more individual defendants and a guilty plea from another bank, a U.S. Department of Justice lawyer said on Thursday.
Michael Koenig, the federal prosecutor, said during a New York federal court hearing that the Justice Department had "individual targets in mind" for potential charges and "at least one other bank entity we anticipate entering into plea negotiations with."
"We do have some more in mind, but we're at the tail end of that," he said.
Koenig did not name the bank or individuals. Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to identify potential targets of what he called an "active, ongoing investigation."
U.S. and European authorities have in recent years charged several individuals and extracted billions of dollars in fines from banks stemming from alleged manipulation of Libor and related rates.
Libor, or the London interbank offered rate, is calculated based on submissions by a panel of banks. It is used to set interest rates on credit cards, student loans and mortgages, and underpins hundreds of trillions of dollars of transactions.
Thursday's hearing before U.S. District Judge George Daniels addressed a Justice Department request to put document discovery, or the gathering of evidence, on hold in a proposed class action lawsuit against several banks.
The lawsuit, filed in 2012, claimed the banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co , HSBC Holdings Plc and Deutsche Bank AG manipulated yen-denominated interest rate benchmarks between 2006 and 2010.
Daniels ordered a stay on discovery until Jan. 15, 2015. The government had sought a stay until May while its investigation continued.
Deutsche Bank is preparing to pay almost 1 billion euros (0.78 billion pounds) in Libor-related fines as it nears a deal with U.S. and British authorities, Reuters reported last month.
Deutsche Bank on Thursday said it is "cooperating in the various regulatory investigations and conducting its own ongoing review into the interbank offered rates matters."
To date, the Justice Department has obtained nearly $1.95 billion through settlements with UBS AG , Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc , Rabobank [RABN.UL] and Barclays Plc .
As part of those settlements, Japanese units of UBS and RBS pleaded guilty to wire fraud.
The Justice Department meanwhile has criminally charged 11 individuals from UBS, Rabobank and ICAP Plc . Two former Rabobank employees have pleaded guilty as part of the U.S. investigation.
The case is Laydon v Mizuho Bank Ltd, et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No 12-3419.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy)