A virtually decade lengthy dispute over price-fixing within the municipal bond marketplace is one-step nearer to a agreement after 3 municipalities secured a small win Thursday.

Pass judgement on Jesse M. Furman of america District Courtroom for the Southern District of New York granted the request for sophistication certification from two towns and one transportation fee suing 8 banks — together with Financial institution of The usa and Goldman Sachs — for conspiring to mend the charges on variable charge call for legal responsibility bonds.

The municipalities are searching for pre-trebled damages of $6.5 billion, and the case may just head to trial subsequent 12 months, in line with Elliott Stein, senior litigation analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

“That is an extra milestone that may push this example to settle sooner or later,” Stein mentioned in an e-mail after the courtroom denied the banks’ motions to bar plaintiffs’ professionals, and granted plaintiffs’ movement for sophistication certification, as anticipated.

Stein has been anticipating settlements to quantity to about $600 million around the 8 defendant banks, which additionally come with Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, the Royal Financial institution of Canada and Wells Fargo.

The primary of the category motion complaints was once filed through the town of Philadelphia in February of 2019, adopted through the town of Baltimore in March of that 12 months, and later through the San Diego Regional Transportation Fee. The complaints have since been consolidated.

Those complaints adopted a sequence of state False Claims Act complaints filed below seal in 2014 and unsealed in 2018, through a Minnesota monetary adviser named Johan Rosenberg. 

In July, the state of Illinois settled its lawsuit for $68 million, announcing the case filed on its behalf “nearly unquestionably” would have led to a loss, in line with a submitting through Lawyer Basic Kwame Raoul.

The so-called VRDOs are long-term bonds that experience their charges periodically reset and be offering buyers the chance to go back the securities for money if they suspect the yields are reset too low. The complaints alleged that the banks — performing as remarketing brokers at the securities — didn’t get the most efficient charges for issuers.

The one financial institution that has replied to Bloomberg’s requests for remark at the ruling, JPMorgan, declined to remark.