NY Court requests details on planned complaint amendments in FX benchmark rate fixing lawsuit
Judge Lorna G. Schofield wants the plaintiffs to explain in detail why the proposed amendments to a complaint targeting major banks are not futile.
Further to the request by the plaintiffs in a Forex benchmark rate fixing lawsuit targeting some of the world’s biggest banks to amend their complaint, the Court has filed a brief entry in response to the request.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield of the New York Southern District Court has instructed the plaintiffs in the case to file a letter that
- describes the proposed amendments;
- explains in detail why the proposed amendments are not futile; and
- briefly explains how the proposed amendments would address the deficiencies identified in the Court’s order denying reconsideration.
Go Everywhere, Inc., Valarie Jolly, Mad Travel, Inc., Lisa McCarthy, John Nypl, and William Rubinsohn – plaintiffs in a lawsuit targeting targeting top banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Barclays Capital, Inc., Citibank, N.A., Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C), Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), Bank of America, N.A, HSBC Bank USA, N.A., and HSBC North America Holdings, Inc., are seeking to introduce amendments which concern the definition of “foreign currency retail transactions”.
According to the plaintiffs, “foreign currency retail transactions” should include transactions other than those involving foreign currency purchased with USD and physically received at the defendant banks’ retail branches within the United States, including credit and debit card transactions and ATM cash withdrawals abroad.
In their request filed on January 18, 2019, the plaintiffs asked for leave to file a motion to amend their complaint to address the precise deficiencies identified by the Court in its September 6, 2018 Order. In particular, the amendments will address the following parts of the Order:
- “The words ‘credit card,’ ‘debit card,’ and ‘ATM’ do not appear in any of the complaints, nor does any named plaintiff claim to have engaged in such transactions.”
- “The expert declaration submitted in support of the TAC…contains no analysis of exchange rates for credit, debit or ATM transactions.”
The case, captioned Nypl v. JP Morgan Chase & Co. et al (1:15-cv-09300), was brought on behalf of a putative class of consumers and end-user businesses alleging that they paid inflated Forex rates caused by an alleged conspiracy among the defendant banks to fix prices of FX benchmark rates in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. sec. 1 et seq.
