ICICI Bank has lodged complaints against people spreading rumors of a $1-billion US lawsuit against the bank with the Economic Offences Wing and SEBI. The bank complained that such rumors led to declines in its share prices by 3.5%.

Bank officials said that they were suspicious that such rumors have been spread by those indiciduals who mean to benefit from fall in the bank's share prices.

Bank authority say they have tracked down these individual rumors. In one case, a mail was forwarded by an indicidual to all his contacts in google groups. The indicidual claimed to be an investor and said that the information was fetched from a website. He has been detained by the police for interrogation, bank said.

In another case the indicidual turned out to be the vice president of a broking firm. He claims that the information he provided was based on comments in a blog.

The bank has got into such trouble earlier also. The first time was in April 2003 when rumours that the bank was facing a liquidity problem led to mass withdrawals in Gujarat. The second time the bank fell prey to such rumors was immediately after the Lehman Brothers collapse.