Dutch cooperatively-owned Rabobank has been accused by some US investors along with 15 other banks, of manipulating Libor interest rates in the past, bank spokesman Hendrik Jan Eijpe said today.

Rabobank has received the summons documents for three class action lawsuits from the lawyers of US investors accusing the full Libor Panel of manipulating interest rates between 2006 and 2009, Rabobank spokesman Mr Eijpe said.

He said the documents received name all 16 Libor Panel bank members, which include Rabobank, but he declined to comment further.

Libor, or the London Inter-Bank Offer Rate, is the interest rate that banks charge each other for loans and is used worldwide as short-term rate benchmark.

About $350 trillion of derivatives and other financial products are based on Libor, and small declines in the rate can cost borrowers and lenders billions of dollars in interest income.

There are a variety of asset managers and pension funds currently suing over Libor, after US and Japanese regulators were reported earlier this year to have been investigating possible manipulation, focused on the 2006-2008 period.

Mr Eijpe said Rabobank is currently studying the summons documents.

Rabobank is the largest retail bank in the Netherlands based on market share of products offered to consumers and small and medium-sized companies, and employs around 59,000 people worldwide.

Reuters