China News Agency, Brussels, December 2 (Reporter De Yongjian) For jointly manipulating foreign exchange transactions, the European Union announced on the 2nd that it imposed heavy fines of 3.4 on 5 banks including HSBC, Barclays Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS and Credit Suisse Group. Billion euros, of which UBS was exempted from fines for “reporting a crime”.
According to the announcement issued by the European Commission on the same day, the EU's investigation is directed at spot foreign exchange transactions, also known as foreign exchange spot transactions, that is, buyers and sellers make transactions at the spot exchange rate in the foreign exchange market and complete the delivery procedures on the day of the transaction or within two trading days. The most common trading method in the current foreign exchange market.
The announcement stated that around the most active trading currencies in the foreign exchange market such as the US dollar, the euro, the British pound, the Japanese yen, and the Swiss franc, the EU survey found that some traders of the banks involved had exchanged sensitive information and trading plans with each other, sometimes through a professional online The chat room coordinates trading plans to avoid market competition and risks, and jointly manipulate spot foreign exchange transactions.
In addition, the investigation found that if a certain trading plan is profitable, these traders will coordinate with each other to actively "give way", that is, when one party conducts a transaction, the other party temporarily suspends the transaction to avoid "interfering" with the program's profit.
The announcement showed that UBS eventually reported the above actions to the European Union, and the result was “exempted” without paying a fine of about 94 million euros; HSBC, Barclays Bank of the United Kingdom and Royal Bank of Scotland were all reduced and exempted for cooperating in the investigation and reconciling with the European Union. , The remaining fines were 174 million euros, 54.34 million euros and 32.47 million euros, totaling 260 million euros.
As for Credit Suisse Group, the announcement stated that the bank neither cooperated with the investigation nor settled with the European Union, and the fines could not be reduced. However, considering that the bank should not be fully responsible for the incident, the European Union decided to reduce the fine by 4% and the remaining fine was 83.29 million euros. .
In May 2019, the European Union has already imposed a huge fine of 1.07 billion euros on British Barclays Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group for two other incidents involving joint manipulation of spot foreign exchange transactions. UBS has also been "exempted" for "reporting the crime" to the EU and does not have to pay a fine of about 285 million euros.
After the European Union notified the penalty decision on December 2, the European Commission’s executive vice president for competition affairs Vestag said that the spot foreign exchange market is one of the world’s largest financial markets, and the five fined banks’ actions to manipulate the market are detrimental to the financial sector. The reputation of the industry has also harmed the European economy and consumers. She also pointed out that since 2013, the EU has conducted 6 antitrust investigations against the financial industry, indicating that the EU is committed to ensuring the stable operation of the financial industry and fair competition, thereby promoting investment and economic growth. .
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