The Court of the European Union, which is part of the Luxembourg Court of Justice, has maintained the European Commission to be punished against banks for creating a cartel regarding European tax bonds. However, he slightly reduced the amount of fines imposed on Unicredit and Nomura.
European Commission She informed 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 Natwest (formerly Royal Bank of Scotland) – participated in the Kartel on European Treasury bonds.
Banks collaborated with each other and exchanged information to obtain an advantage as part of the bond issue.
Bank Kartel in the European Union
The commission imposed a fine of 371 million euros to the banks of Nomura, UBS and Unicredit. 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.
Maintenance of penalties by the court
Six of seven banks (all except Natwest) applied to the Court of the 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 only 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.
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