Barclays paid out $100 million for 'defrauding' US state governments

Barclays reached a $100 million settlement with 44 US states over claims it manipulated US dollar Libor benchmark interest rates.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the deal on Monday, saying: "As a result of Barclays' misconduct, government entities and not-for-profits were defrauded of funds that otherwise could have been used to benefit the people of New York."

"There has to be one set of rules for everyone, no matter how rich or how powerful, and that includes big banks and other financial institutions that engage in fraud or impair the fair functioning of financial markets," Schneiderman said.

The Attorney General's office said that Barclays is the first of several banks on the panel that sets US dollar Libor to settle the claims against it, adding that the lender had cooperated with the investigation from the start.

Barclays admitted to wrongdoing that occurred between 2005 and 2008 as part of the settlement. Some of the bank's traders colluded with those at other firms to submit Libor rates that could affect the overall rate and benefit their own trading positions.

"Barclays is pleased to have resolved the state attorneys' general investigation into Barclays' legacy Libor- and Euribor-related activities," a Barclays spokesman told Reuters.

The Libor rigging scandal has dogged Barclays since the bank paid its first $453 million fine in 2012 to the US and UK authorities. Last month four former Barclays bankers were sentenced to between 33 months and six-and-a-half years in jail by a London judge for conspiring to fraudulently rig global benchmark interest rates.