Berman Tabacco is co-lead counsel in this antitrust class action, representing its client San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association and other named plaintiffs and the putative class. This action seeks recovery for U.S. investors under federal antitrust law, for damages stemming from an alleged conspiracy to fix prices of European Government Bonds (or “EGBs”)—sovereign debt denominated in Euros issued by European central governments, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Belgium, Austria, Finland, and the Netherlands. The complaint alleges that the defendant banks conspired with each other for years to rig auctions and manipulate the prices at which they transacted EGBs in the secondary market with U.S. investors. It is alleged that, by coordinating with one another rather than competing, the defendant banks generated greater trading profits for themselves at the expense of their counterparties, thereby harming the pension funds, endowments, hedge funds, corporations, and other investors that transacted EGBs with the defendant banks. Plaintiffs are pursuing the case on behalf of all U.S. investors that transacted EGBs directly with a defendant between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2012. The affected market is large: there were over $8 trillion worth of EGBs held globally as of 2012, with the U.S. market size in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Plaintiffs assert a claim for conspiracy to restrain trade in violation of section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The action seeks to recover the overcharges to investors for their purchases of EGBs from defendants, as well as underpayments to investors in connection with their sales of EGBs to the defendants.
