GREATER Manchester Combined Authority is one of eight councils have had their claims thrown out by a High Court judge after they brought legal action against Barclays Bank over loans they alleged were affected by the Libor rigging scandal.

Claims were filed against the bank by Leeds City Council, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Newcastle City Council, North East Lincolnshire Council, Nottingham City Council, Oldham Council, Sheffield Council and the London Borough of Newham.

The local authorities launched the action in 2018 in a bid to cancel long term loans they took out with the bank between September 2006 and November 2008.

They said the loans were "tainted" by a number of alleged representations said to have been made by the bank concerning Libor - the London Interbank Offered Rate - at the time the loans were offered.

But a High Court judge struck out the claims against the bank, following an application by Barclays.

In a ruling on Monday, Mrs Justice Cockerill concluded the claims had "no real prospect of success" at a trial.

Libor is a set of benchmark rates which are supposed to reflect the rate at which a bank could obtain a loan from another bank in a particular currency for a particular period.

The judge said it has been "of fundamental importance to global financial markets" as it helps to assess the overall health of the banking sector and is widely used by financial institutions for various purposes - including setting rates for their products.

She said the Libor rigging scandal "erupted" in 2012 when it was discovered that a number of banks were "engaged in manipulating the various Libor benchmarks", and submitted rates which "served their own purposes" instead of submitting their "genuine assessment of the rate at which they thought they could borrow".

The judge added: "The scandal led to fines, prosecutions and reforms on both sides of the Atlantic."

She said it was "common ground (and public knowledge) that Barclays did in fact engage in Libor manipulation, but that the precise nature and extent of the banks involvement in it is "very much in issue".