Forex lawsuit against BNY Mellon partly dismissed

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Friday partially dismissed a lawsuit against Bank of New York Mellon over its foreign exchange pricing practices, according to a ruling.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco gave the plaintiffs 21 days to file an amended lawsuit. He also granted BNY Mellon's request to move several claims brought by pension funds to other courts.

Legal battles have raged for several years over claims that custodial banks, mainly BNY Mellon and State Street, routinely overcharged pension funds and other institutional clients on currency transactions.

State Street was sued in October 2009 by the California attorney general over its foreign-exchange practices. In August last year, state officials in Florida and Virginia sued BNY Mellon, joining whistleblower lawsuits originally filed by the group FX Analytics.

Along with the pension funds, FX Analytics is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit before Alsup. Attorneys for both sets of plaintiffs could not immediately be reached on Friday, and a BNY Mellon representative could not immediately comment on the ruling.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is In re Bank of New York Mellon Corporation False Claims Act Foreign Exchange Litigation, 11-5683.

(Reporting By Dan Levine; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)