StanChart welcomes 'clarity' from UK court ruling over replacement rate for Libor

LONDON (Reuters) - Standard Chartered won its bid in a London court on Tuesday to replace the financial benchmark it used to set dividend rates for some shares, which the bank said provided "clarity" about alternative rates to Libor.

In an early case over the transition from Libor, Standard Chartered wanted to change the three-month U.S. dollar Libor rate that was used to set dividends on some preference shares to one based on the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR).

The High Court ruled, despite opposition from some investors, that Standard Chartered's proposed new rate based on SOFR was a "reasonable alternative rate".

Judges Julian Flaux and David Foxton said Standard Chartered's SOFR-based alternative was "a well-established rate used across the financial markets", which had been "endorsed by financial regulators of the major markets in the US and the UK".

Standard Chartered's primary case, that the terms of the preference shares required a rate that effectively replicated or replaced three-month U.S. dollar Libor, was rejected.

The bank said in a regulatory statement that the ruling gave clarity about the "use of an alternative benchmark rate", after Libor finally ceased last month.

The tarnished London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor, was replaced in June 2023, though a synthetic version of the rate continued until the end of September to ease the transition.

The case focused on $750 million of preference shares issued in 2006, with the interest rate payable set to 3-month U.S. dollar Libor a decade later.

Funds run by U.S. investor DE Shaw and hedge fund manager Bracebridge Capital had argued that when Libor ended, the preference shares ought to be redeemed, or alternatively a rate based on the last published Libor rate could be used.

A spokesperson for the funds' lawyers at Quinn Emanuel said in a statement that the ruling "enables Standard Chartered to impose a fundamentally different commercial bargain on its investors from what had been agreed".

The spokesperson added that the funds involved in the case were "actively considering their next steps".

(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Mark Porter and Mark Potter)