New York: Deutsche Bank AG has reached a settlement in a lawsuit over allegations it manipulated silver futures prices, lawyers for traders said in a court filing.
Attorneys for traders in a private lawsuit said in a letter Wednesday in Manhattan federal court that the bank has executed a “binding term sheet” and is negotiating final details of the accord.
The German financial firm also agreed to help the plaintiffs pursue similar claims against other banks as part of the settlement by providing instant messages and other communications, according to the letter filed by attorneys Vincent Briganti and Robert Eisler. Financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
Silver future traders in 2014 sued a group of banks including Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings Plc and Bank of Nova Scotia alleging they unlawfully manipulated the price of the metal and its derivatives, echoing similar claims brought previously against financial firms over alleged manipulation of gold prices. Later, UBS AG was also named as a defendant in the silver-fixing case.
Traders alleged the banks abused their position of controlling the daily silver fix to reap illegitimate profit from trading, hurting other investors in the silver market who use the benchmark in billions of dollars of transactions, according to a version of the complaint filed in April 2015. Of those four banks, only Deutsche Bank has reached a settlement.
Amanda Williams, a spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank, declined to comment on the accord. Rick Roth, a spokesman for Scotiabank, the operating name for the Bank of NovaScotia, and HSBC spokesman Robert Sherman declined to comment. A UBS representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the filing.
The case is In re: London Silver Fixing Ltd., Antitrust Litigation, 1:14-md-02573, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
