EU: Crédit Agricole and Credit Suisse Involved in Government Bond Cartel

Nov 22, 2024 Benn-Ibler Rechtsanwälte

Crédit agricole and Credit Suisse have participated in an agreement to fix US dollar denominated sovereign and government bond prices. The fine imposed by the Commission in 2021 has now been confirmed by the European Court of Justice (CJEU).

In 2018, the Commission opened antitrust proceedings against Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Crédit agricole, and Credit Suisse. In 2021, the Commission found that these banks had colluded in the secondary market for supranational, government and public sector bonds denominated in US dollars. Traders employed by these banks had coordinated trading and pricing strategies and exchanged commercially sensitive information relating to their current or future activities, including bid and offer prices and trading positions. These concerted practices had the object of restricting competition.

The Commission therefore imposed a fine of several million euros on the cartel members.

Both Credit Suisse and Crédit agricole sought annulment of the Commission’s decision as regards them. Both argued that the Commission had made errors of assessment in finding that they had participated in an anti-competitive agreement and also in calculating their respective fines.

The General Court now ruled:

The practices of the banks’ traders were part of an overall plan with a single anti-competitive objective, even if discussions between the traders of these banks became less frequent after February 2013.

The Court also finds that the Commission did not err in law in finding that the four banks in question had an anti-competitive object and that it was therefore not required to prove their effect on competition. In that regard, the Court finds that the Commission did not err either in its assessment of the economic context of the conduct in question nor in its assessment of the claim that the conduct was justified by virtue of its ‘favourable’ implications.

CJEU T-386/21 (6 November 2024)