The big four Australian banks, Macquarie and a dozen international investment banks who were members of the panel that set the bank bill swap rate, a key benchmark interest rate, have been sued in the US District Court by two US hedge funds and a derivatives trader.

The banks "generated hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit profits by artificially fixing BBSW-based derivatives prices at levels that benefited their trading books," says the claim commenced in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.