On September 25, 2025, Simpson Thacher won complete dismissal of all remaining claims in long-running multidistrict litigation against JPMorgan relating to the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) in a 273-page opinion issued by U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald. The Court granted Defendants’ summary judgment motion on all remaining claims, decertified a previously certified class, and granted Daubert motions against certain of Plaintiffs’ experts. Plaintiffs included a class of purchasers of LIBOR-linked financial products and several other institutional investors, who brought antitrust and fraud-based claims against JPMorgan and other US Dollar LIBOR panel banks in 2011, alleging that the banks conspired to persistently suppress LIBOR by submitting artificially low rates to protect their reputation.
In granting summary judgment, the Court rejected Plaintiffs’ proffered conspiracy as “economically senseless,” found there was no direct evidence of a conspiracy, and that Plaintiffs had not provided sufficient evidence of parallel conduct to support their allegations of a multi-bank conspiracy to persistently suppress LIBOR. The Court further found that there was no evidence that LIBOR had been artificially suppressed. In reaching those rulings, the Court also excluded much of Plaintiffs’ expert testimony, finding it irrelevant, unreliable, and improperly infringing on the factfinder’s role. These findings required dismissal of Plaintiffs’ antitrust and fraud-based claims: “Having found that plaintiffs failed to proffer evidence sufficient to raise a triable issue of fact as to conspiracy and suppression, all of plaintiffs’ claims fail.” The Court also decertified the previously-certified class against JPMorgan and another Defendant and denied Plaintiffs’ motion to certify a class against other Defendants, ruling that Plaintiffs failed to present common classwide evidence to justify certification.
The Simpson Thacher team spanned more than 14 years and dozens of team members, with the current team including Partners Alan Turner, Abram Ellis and Rachel Sparks Bradley, Counsel Josh Hazan, and Associates Laurel Fresquez, Ev Gilbert, William Moran, Kate Lambroza, Hayley McLaughlin and Wendy Wu. Prior team members include Tom Rice, Paul Gluckow, Mary Beth Forshaw, Sarah Phillips, Juan Arteaga, Omari Mason and the late Isaac Rethy.