Biola University, a Christian institution in California, has sued two banks it says charged too much for $82-million in derivatives that the college bought to lower the interest rate on bonds it had sold, according to Bloomberg News.

Biola, in a lawsuit filed on Monday, said Bank of America and BNP Paribas had led the university to believe that it had paid a fair price for derivatives purchased in 2002 and 2004. The derivatives, financial contracts that get their value from an underlying security, such as a stock, bond, or commodity, were tied to tax-exempt bonds the college had sold.

At the heart of the lawsuit, Bloomberg reported, is the university’s involvement in what is called an interest-rate swap. Borrowers, such as Biola, sell variable-rate bonds. They then pay a bank a fixed interest rate on the amount borrowed, essentially converting their debt to fixed-rate, and get floating-rate payments from the bank in return.

In 2002 Biola sold $59.6-million of variable-rate bonds and then bought derivatives from BNP Paribas — at the advice of its longtime bank, Bank of America, the university said. In exchange for floating-rate payments through 2032, the university agreed to pay 5.34 percent on $24.6-million of the bonds and 5.1 percent on $35-million of the bonds, Bloomberg said. The lawsuit says the fixed rates the university agreed to were excessive. Biola also said in the lawsuit that in 2004 it was overcharged for two swaps that totaled $24.6-million, one provided by each bank.

The university wants $25-million or more in compensatory and punitive damages, Bloomberg reported. —Audrey Williams June