A Citigroup executive in London said he was pressuring brokers to get other banks to lower their interest-rate submissions, a London court heard Tuesday.

Andrew Thursfield, a high-ranking executive in Citigroup's London office, wrote to a colleague in September 2007 about plans to try to get the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, to a lower level. "We will continue to pressure the brokers to talk it down and generally press lower," Thursfield emailed his colleague on September 7. The colleague, Scott Bere, previously had asked Thursfield to help reduce Citigroup's Libor submissions, "assuming we aren't adversely impacting our reset risk." That appears to be a reference to Citigroup's holdings of derivatives pegged to Libor.