Fannie Mae sues nine banks over Libor losses

America's biggest mortgage company Fannie Mae is suing nine of the world's biggest banks over losses relating to the Libor scandal.Libor refers to the London interbank offered rate,alligator shear which is an interest rate used by many banks, mortgage lenders, and others to set the price of borrowing on trillions of dollars of financial contracts.Several banks have indicated that they colluded to set the rate artificially low, which could have deprived lenders like Fannie Mae of higher profits.The lender is seeking more than $800m in damages.The nine banks being sued by Fannie Mae are Barclays, RBS, Rabobank, UBS, Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase.

Workers faced with forfeiting unused money in their flexible spending accounts for healthcare expenses may be getting some relief under a new federal rule.The U.S. Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service changed the use-it-or-lose-it rule for flexible spending arrangements,alligator shear or FSAs, to allow account holders to carry over as much as $500 from one year to the next without penalty.Many workers have been reluctant to put money into the plans for fear of losing whatever they don't use, resulting in long-standing complaints about how the pretax FSAs work.Typically, they must estimate before the year starts how much they might spend on healthcare, and employers regularly deduct money from their paychecks before taxes. Any amount left over at the end of the year would go back to the employers.

With less risk of such forfeitures now, experts predicted that more workers, particularly lower- and moderate-income employees, would take advantage of the deductions for everyday medical expenses, such as co-pays,skin analyzer over-the-counter drugs and other items not normally covered by health insurance."We are always looking for ways to provide added flexibility and common-sense solutions to how people pay for their healthcare," Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Thursday.Treasury officials began taking public comments on the change last year, and they said the response was overwhelmingly in favor of giving workers more leeway.

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