Swiss Competion Commission (COMCO) fines several European and U.S. banks

The Swiss Competition Commission (COMCO) said on Wednesday it had fined several European and U.S. banks over four instances of interest rate cartels, the largest of which was a 33.9 million Swiss franc ($32.9 million) penalty for JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The commission said J.P. Morgan and RBS ran a “bilateral cartel” to influence the Swiss franc Libor benchmark rate, which is widely used by banks to determine on what terms they will lend to each other and to price derivatives, between 2008 and 2009. 
JPMorgan will pay CHF33.9 million, but RBS will not have to pay a fine as it went to Weko with the information.

RBS, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and J.P. Morgan were fined a total of 14.4 million francs for colluding to influence the Yen Libor rate and related yen derivatives between 2007 and 2010, COMCO said. 

Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, RBS and UBS operated a cartel to manipulate the pricing of Swiss franc interest rate derivatives in 2007, COMCO said. UBS received immunity for revealing the cartel and was not fined. The other banks however will have to pay CHF5.4 million.

Another group of banks were fined 45.3 million francs for manipulating the Euro Interbank Offered Rate, or Euribor. Deutsche Bank, Barclays, RBS, and Societe Generale participated in a related cartel between 2005 and 2008, COMCO said, while Deutsche Bank has been given full immunity.

Proceeding are ongoing against BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, HSBC, JPMorgan and Rabobank over the euro interest rate cartel, Comco said.