Attorney General Sam Olens announced a $100 million multistate settlement with Barclays Bank PLC and Barclays Capital Inc. for fraudulent and anti-competitive conduct involving the manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or, Libor. This is a benchmark interest rate that affects financial instruments worth trillions of dollars and has a widespread impact on global markets and consumers.

Barclays has agreed to pay $100 million, of which about $93 million will be used to reimburse government and nonprofit organizations that had Libor-linked swaps and other investment contracts with Barclays and that were harmed by the activity.

A multistate investigation revealed that Barclays had manipulated Libor during the financial crisis period of 2007-2008 by understating the interest rates it would need to pay to borrow money in order to avoid the appearance that Barclays was in financial difficulty and would need to pay a higher rate than some of its peers.

Government entities and not-for-profit organizations were defrauded when they entered into swaps and other investment instruments with Barclays without knowing that Barclays and other banks on the U.S. dollar-Libor-setting panel were manipulating Libor and colluding with other banks to do so.

The states joining the Barclays settlement include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The investigation into the conduct of several other USD-LIBOR-setting panel banks is ongoing.