Briefly

Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and 13 other investment banks agreed Wednesday to pay a total of $13 million to settle claims that they manipulated the $260-billion market for so-called auction-rate bonds, the Securities and Exchange Commission said. A two-year agency probe found that the firms potentially hurt the integrity of the market via a number of practices, including providing some clients with information that gave them an advantage over other customers in bidding for the bonds.