A group of international banks, including two represented by S&C, succeeded in winning a dismissal with prejudice of a purported class action alleging an antitrust conspiracy to manipulate the Singapore Interbank Offered Rate (SIBOR) and the Singapore Swap Offer Rate (SOR). The group includes S&C clients Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and ING Bank.
In a July 26 ruling, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed with prejudice the third amended complaint in Fund Liquidation Holdings LLC v. Citibank, N.A., and denied plaintiffs leave to file a fourth amended complaint. Judge Hellerstein held that the named plaintiffs lacked standing, rejecting their argument that they had been assigned these claims in an asset purchase.
The S&C teams were a driving force in the development, pursuit, briefing and argument of the winning issues. The ANZ team was led by litigation partner Penny Shane and the ING team was led by litigation partner Amanda Davidoff.
The Court also denied Fund Liquidation Holdings’ motion for leave to amend to add two new named plaintiffs that it alleged had standing. The Court concluded that the proposed new plaintiffs’ class claims are time-barred under the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in China Agritech v. Resh, which held that American Pipe tolling does not permit successive class action filings.