Deutsche Börse said it was raided by European Union (EU) antitrust watchdogs who suspect that the firm may have been involved in a cartel related to “financial derivatives.”
A spokesperson confirmed that the company was hit by the EU’s unannounced inspections on Monday, and that it is “fully co-operating” with the probe.
The European Commission said that raids took place across two EU states and targeted firms may “have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit restrictive business practices.” Officials gave no further details.
While so-called dawn raids can be a precursor for fines of as much as 10 per cent of companies’ global sales, regulators seldom levy penalties of that size. The EU’s antitrust arm also pointed out that while the companies are under suspicion, they’re not yet guilty of any wrongdoing. There is no legal deadline for the conclusion of the commission’s investigation.
The inspections are the latest round of a decade of EU probes targeting the finance industry and key benchmarks – including how traders swapped information in chat-rooms to distort pricing components for derivatives as well as to manipulate euro-dominated bonds and government-guaranteed securities.
The investigations followed EU approval for government support to keep many European lenders alive during the financial crisis in the wake of the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings. – Bloomberg
