The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has completed its investigation into anti‐competitive information exchanges in the UK government bond market, no names or details of exact breaches of compliance, nor of details of messages involved were given.
Four banks—Citi, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, and Royal Bank of Canada—have been fined a combined total exceeding £100m for breaches occurring between 2009 and 2013 during which traders used one-to-one Bloomberg chat sessions to discuss pricing and trading strategies related to gilts.
The CMA’s published some details about the series of exchanges pertaining to the dates they happened. Further exact details about the regulatory breaches were lacking
In the case closing today, Deutsche Bank was granted immunity after voluntarily reporting its involvement under the CMA’s leniency policy, and Citi benefited from significant discounts after cooperating fully and settling with the regulator. Each bank’s fine was adjusted based on the timing of the misconduct and the remedial measures implemented subsequently. The banks must pay their respective penalties by 22 April 2025.
Juliette Enser, Executive Director of Competition Enforcement at the CMA, stated:
“Following constructive engagement between the banks and the CMA, we are pleased that we have been able to settle these 5 cases involving the past sharing of competitively sensitive information about pricing.”
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