Lloyds expected to pay up to $509.5 million as LIBOR fine

(Reuters) - Lloyds Banking Group is expected to announce early next week that the British bank would pay between 200 million pounds and 300 million pounds ($509.52 million)to settle benchmark interest rate (LIBOR) fixing allegations, the Financial Times reported late on Thursday. Lloyds is expected to announce the payment before declaring its first-half results, the media agency reported citing people familiar with the situation. ( http://on.ft.com/1mK7C1q ) The FT said the Lloyds settlement is expected to include fines paid to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Department of Justice (DoJ) in the United States and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK. According to the news service, the settlement is likely to include the publication of extracts from some 40 emails that allegedly show traders discussing how to manipulate the benchmarks used to set interest rates for trillions of dollars worth of financial products between 2006 and 2009. One person familiar with the situation told the FT that Lloyds was likely to face less political criticism than Barclays did as it has changed its top management since the alleged misconduct took place and it is now clear that many banks were involved. Lloyds, FCA, CFTC and DoJ could not immediately be reached for comment.($1 = 0.5888 British Pounds) (Reporting by Aashika Jain in Bangalore; editing by Gunna Dickson)