European Commission fines banks in bond trading cartel

 

European Commission fines banks in bond trading cartel

The European Commission has found that Bank of America, Natixis, Nomura, RBS (now NatWest), UBS, UniCredit and WestLB (now Portigon) have breached Article 101(1) TFEU through their participation in a cartel in the markets for European Government Bonds.  The case follows a similar pattern of conduct to that seen in the Commission’s forex cartel investigation.

The Commission found that the banks’ traders regularly communicated with each other in chatrooms on Bloomberg terminals where they exchanged price sensitive information and shared details of their bidding strategies.  The cartel dates back to the financial crisis (between 2007 and 2011). 

The Commission imposed total penalties of EUR371 million on Nomura, UBS and UniCredit.  NatWest as the immunity applicant escaped fines.  Portgigon incurred a zero penalty as the economic successor to WestLB as it had no relevant net turnover in the period used to calculate the fine.  Bank of America and Natixix escaped fines as their involvement was outside the limitation period.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_2565