Numbers versus words: The Tipline for 6 September 2019

Modern economic tools have reshaped how antitrust cases are litigated, but good old-fashioned documents can still play the starring role. Just ask a group of banks “implicated” by a series of chatroom transcripts. Judge Jed Rakoff said the investment funds suing those banks have presented a “rare smoking gun” that “unmistakably” showed bond traders had agreed to fix selling prices. The New York federal judge dismissed the claims against the banks not included in the chats, as the plaintiffs had offered only circumstantial evidence against them via an analysis showing increased bond prices across the sector and not only at the chatroom-linked banks.