Credit Suisse and Crédit Agricole have lost their appeals to avoid €28.4 in fines for competition rule infringement, initially imposed by the European Commission in 2021.
The General Court of the European Union has ruled in favour of the European Commission’s case, agreeing with its findings that traders at Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Crédit agricole and Credit Suisse were involved in a supersovereign bonds, sovereignty bonds and public agency bonds (SSA bonds) cartel between 2010 and 2015.
The Commission stated that those involved executed agreed-upon trading and pricing strategies and shared sensitive market information related to their current or future activities. This “single and continuous infringement covering the entire European Economic Area” restricted and distorted the SSA bond sector, it said.
Due to its cooperation with the investigation, Deutsche Bank was not fined. Bank of America was fined €12.6 million, Credit Suisse €11.9 million and Crédit Agricole €3.9 million. The latter two appealed the decision, arguing that the Commission made errors of assessment both in regard to their involvement in the anticompetitive agreement and in the calculation of their fines.
Credit Suisse’s action was dismissed outright, while Crédit Agricole received a marginally different accusation: that its participation in the infringement began on the 11 January 2013, rather than the 10 January. The bank’s request that its fine be reduced was rejected. Collectively, the General Court ruled that the Commission did not make any errors in its assessments of the case, nor in the methodology of its fine calculations.
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