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LUE sanctions banks for cartel on bond markets | Photo credits: Popartic / Shutterstock.com
(With details and context)
BRUSSELS, May 20 (Reuters) – The European Commission announced on Thursday that it had imposed a total of 371 million euros on banks for participating in an anti-competitive cartel in government bond markets.
The fines concern Nomura, UBS and UniCredit but the EC specifies that the implicated cartel also involved Bank of America, Natixis, RBS (now NatWest), and WestLB (now Portigon).
Natwest escaped the fine because it alerted the competition authorities, while the infringements found for BofA and Natixis were time-barred, says the Commission.
As for Portigon, its fine is zero because it did not generate any net income during the last financial year, which serves as a reference for setting the amount of the penalty.
The Commission found that the seven banks had participated in a cartel through a group of traders operating in the primary and secondary government bond markets who were “in regular contact with each other” to trade confidential information on prices and transaction volumes. (Foo Yun Chee, French version Marc Angrand)
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