Cartel of seven banks
The European Commission announced on May 20, 2021 that from January 2007 to November 2011 seven investment banks – UBS, Natixis, Unicredit, Nomura, Bank of America, Portigon (formerly Westlb) and Nestwest (formerly Royal Bank of Scotland) – participated in a cartel regarding European treasury bonds.
Banks collaborated with each other and exchanged information to obtain a competitive advantage as part of the issue of bonds.
The penalty of the European Commission
The Commission imposed on the banks of Nomura, UBS and Unicredit KAres with a total amount of EUR 371 million. Bank of America, Natixis and Natwest were not punished. The first two because the limitation period for the possibility for the Commission to impose fines, and the third of the listed banks – because he revealed the Commission to the existence of a cartel.
Bank Portigon was not punished due to its negative turnover, achieved in the last financial year before disclosure of the cartel.
Judgment of the European Union court
Six of seven banks (all except Natww) came to Court of European Union for annulment of the commission’s decision or reduced the fines imposed on them.
In the judgment issued on Wednesday, however, the court upheld the commission’s decision and slightly reduced the amount of fines imposed on Unicredit and Nomura.
With regard to Nomura, the court stated that the Commission made a mistake when determining one of the fines of the fine when it refused to use some of the data provided by this bank. In the case of UniCredit, the court decided that the bank had joined the cartel 17 days later than it would result from the commission’s information. (PAP)
