(CN) — The European Union’s second-highest court on Wednesday upheld hefty fines against the UBS, Nomura and UniCredit banks for colluding during the 2008 financial crisis to reap illegal profits from European bond markets.
The General Court affirmed a 2021 antitrust case brought by the European Commission against these banks and four others, including Bank of America, for acting as a cartel.
Regulators accused traders at the investment banks of sharing sensitive information to gain an edge in government bond markets between 2007 and 2011.
The eurozone was in deep turmoil at the time as European governments bailed out troubled banks and dealt with a mounting debt crisis following the 2008 financial collapse.
UBS, Nomura and UniCredit face big fines if they are unable to successfully appeal their cases to the European Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court. The three banks said they are considering appeals.
UBS, a Switzerland-based bank, was slapped with more than 172 million euros ($185 million) in fines; Nomura, one of Japan’s biggest banks, was hit with 125.6 million euros ($135.6 million) in fines; and UniCredit, a major Italian bank, faces a fine of 65 million euros ($70 million). The General Court slightly lowered the fines against Nomura and UniCredit.
Four other banks — Bank of America, Natixis, the Royal Bank of Scotland (now NatWest) and WestLB (now Portigon) — were also accused of taking part in the cartel.
NatWest, a major London-based bank, was not fined because it revealed the illegal trading to EU regulators. Meanwhile, North Carolina-based Bank of America and France-based Natixis avoided financial penalties because the commission’s power to impose fines against them was time-barred.
Portigon, a German bank, was spared because it had no turnover during a business year used to determine the maximum amount of the fine.
EU regulators said traders for the banks were in regular contact with each other through chat rooms on Bloomberg terminals and exchanged information about their bidding strategies in the run-up to auctions of eurozone bonds.
The court said swapping commercially sensitive information and sharing price-fixing arrangements were “particularly harmful to competition.”
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
