The EU Commission suspects that Deutsche Bank and the Dutch Rabobank have coordinated trading in bonds from public authorities and state development banks and have thus influenced prices.

The Brussels competition authority therefore sent the two institutes "objections" - i.e. a catalog with their allegations - on Tuesday.

This means the official opening of antitrust proceedings.

If these allegations were substantiated, the banks would have violated EU antitrust rules, the Commission announced.

Werner Mussler

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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Editor in Business.

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Trading in various euro-denominated bonds is primarily affected by institutions such as the World Bank and KfW.

The EU authority suspects that "some dealers" of Deutsche Bank and Rabobank exchanged sensitive business information between 2005 and 2016 and thus agreed on their prices and trading strategies.

The agreements were mainly made by e-mail and in online chats.

According to the Commission, it initially tried to settle the case by way of a settlement.

This would have resulted in the parties admitting their wrongdoing and in return getting away with a significant discount on the potential cartel fine.

However, the talks were broken off "due to lack of progress" and normal antitrust proceedings were returned to, which are now taking their course.

Deutsche Bank considers itself a key witness

Both banks can now respond to the allegations and request a hearing before the EU Commission and national competition authorities.

If they fail to address the Commission's concerns, it can impose a fine of up to 10 percent of banks' annual global turnover.

Deutsche Bank said it does not expect a fine.

"Deutsche Bank has proactively cooperated with the European Commission on this matter and has therefore been granted conditional immunity from fines," it said in a statement.

From this it can be concluded that Deutsche Bank itself has reported misconduct and expects to receive “leniency” in return.

Then the fine would usually be waived.

Since 2016, it has also provided information in its annual reports about the allegedly anti-competitive agreements.

This is the third EU antitrust investigation into suspected collusion in the government bond market.

Most recently, the Commission had investigated seven international investment banks whose traders had agreed on the European market for government bonds at the height of the international financial crisis between 2007 and 2011 - also primarily in chat rooms.

In May 2021, she imposed antitrust fines totaling 371 million euros on three of them – UBS, Nomura and Unicredit.

Four banks did not have to pay a fine because they acted as witnesses or because their violations were time-barred.

Deutsche Bank was also involved in an even more recent case in which the Commission imposed only small fines, but as a leniency witness, it did not have to pay any fines.