A US financial regulator has filed a suit in Federal District Court in Kansas against 13 international banks over alleged manipulation of benchmark LIBOR interest rates.

The National Credit Union Administration is suing JP Morgan Chase, UBS, Credit Suisse and
10 other international banks for alleged violations of federal and state
anti-trust laws.

Their alleged manipulation
resulted in the loss of income from investments and other assets held by five
failed corporate credit unions, including US Central, WesCorp, Members United,
Southwest and Constitution. 

The NCUA said the banks are accused of giving false interest rate
information through the LIBOR rate-setting process “to benefit their
investments that were tied to LIBOR, to reduce their borrowing costs, to
deceive the marketplace as to the true state of their creditworthiness, and to
deprive investors of the interest rate payments to which they were entitled".

“We have a responsibility to pursue recoveries through every
available avenue against those who caused billions of dollars in losses to
credit unions. Some firms were manipulating international interest rates in a
way that cost the five corporates to lose millions of dollars. Just as we are
doing in our other suits, we are seeking to hold responsible parties
accountable for their actions," said NCUA board chairman Debbie Matz.

The false information created the impression the defendant banks
were borrowing money at a lower interest rate than they were actually paying,
the NCUA said.

Banks involved in the LIBOR manipulation
have been under investigation by authorities in the US
and the UK.
The investigating authorities have so far collected approximately $2.5 billion
in penalties from three firms: UBS, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays.