The inspection relates to potential violations of EU antitrust rules which include directly or indirectly fix purchase or selling prices or any trading conditions.
Action keeps dark volume caps in place until the new Commission delegated single volume caps enter into force; whether the new rules can be legally enforced is still up for debate.
Proposal to draw Euro clearing back to the Bloc via active clearing accounts with European CCPs has proved divisive with participants who claim the move could be anti-competitive.
The watchdog began investigating the cartel in December 2022 after Deutsche Bank revealed it to the European Commission under the leniency programme; Rabobank received a €26.6 million fine for its participation.
The MoU, however, will not make any decisions around the adoption of equivalence or deal with access of UK-based firms to the single market or EU firms’ access to the UK market.
While acknowledging potential benefits of the European Commission’s latest proposals, the associations noted that the changes could make EU firms less competitive and have a negative impact on the derivatives market.
Watchdog has concerns that between 2005 and 2016 the banks exchanged commercially sensitive information and coordinated their EEA bonds pricing and trading strategies.
Regulatory package put forward today by the European Commission is intended to reduce EU participants reliance on CCPs outside of the Bloc and repatriate clearing volumes.
The head of the securities markets unit at the European Commission has strongly urged for a reduction in deferral times to make the tape commercially viable, while also discussing the possible inclusion of pre-trade data.
US and European regulators look set to be taking starkly different stances on the contentious practice of paying for order flow.