Swiss launch competition probe against banks

February 3

Swiss launch competition probe against UBS, CS

http://www.wral.com/business/story/10682141/

BERN, SWITZERLAND — Switzerland's competition commission said Friday it has launched an investigation into possible cartel behavior by a dozen banks including the country's two biggest lenders UBS and Credit Suisse.

The banks are suspected of colluding to influence key interest rates and the trading conditions for complex financial products that allow investors to bet on further interest rates — known as derivatives — the commission said in a statement Friday.

"Specifically, collusion between derivative traders might have influenced the reference rates LIBOR and TIBOR," it said.

The London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and the Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate (TIBOR) are used as the basis for many commercial interest rates. The commission said the banks are also suspected of illegally influencing market conditions for derivatives based on these reference rates.

The foreign institutions named in the Swiss probe are Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings PLC, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Rabobank Groep N.V., Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, Societe Generale SA, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

Competition authorities in the United States and Britain have launched similar investigations.

Separately, British and Swiss financial market authorities said Friday they have begun enforcement proceedings against UBS over its massive rogue trading loss last year. Such proceedings can result in regulators demanding changes to the way a bank operates.

UBS said in a statement that it would fully cooperate with the regulators.

Former UBS trader Kweku Adoboli, 31, was arrested in September on charges of committing fraud that cost the bank over $2 billion. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of fraud and two of false accounting between 2008 and 2011.