UBS slams EU antitrust regulators for 'arbitrary' $186 mln cartel fine
09/06/2023 10:34
By Foo Yun Chee
LUXEMBOURG, June 9 (Reuters) - UBS UBSG.S on Friday
criticised EU antitrust regulators over the way they calculated
its 172.4-million-euro ($186 million) cartel fine, saying the
arbitrary figure was based on inaccurate assumptions that
resulted in a big penalty.
The Swiss bank was penalised by the European Commission in
2021 for taking part in a European government bond trading
cartel between 2007 and 2011, in the midst of the European debt
crisis. Its fine was the biggest.
The financial industry has been fined billions of euros
worldwide in recent years for rigging foreign exchange, Euribor
and Libor benchmarks and bonds.
UBS subsequently challenged the EU decision at the General
Court, Europe's second-highest.
While the bank estimated the relevant value of sales used to
calculate the fine should be 89 million euros, the EU
competition enforcer used its own figure of almost 300 million
euros, UBS lawyer Christian Riis-Madsen told judges at a
hearing.
"Because of this new methodology, the fine imposed on UBS
was several times larger than it should have been," he said.
"What is dressed up as a scientific calculation in reality
is a series of stack proxies and assumptions," Riis-Madsen said.
"The overall approach leads to an arbitrary outcome and must be
rejected."
Commission lawyer Thomas Franchoo rejected the criticism.
"The fine needs to reflect the economic importance of the
infringement, and the relative contribution of each of the
participating undertakings to that infringement," he told the
court.
Other penalised banks were UniCredit CRDI.MI and Nomura
7131.T . NatWest dodged a fine as it alerted the cartel to the
EU antitrust watchdog.
Bank of America BAC.N and Natixis BFCEp.PA were also not
fined because their infringement fell outside the limitation
period while Portigon, the successor to WestLB, received a zero
fine as it did not generate any net turnover in the last
business year.
The court will rule in the coming months. The case is
T-441/21 UBS Group and UBS v Commission.
($1 = 0.9290 euros)
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
UBS, Swiss government agree on Credit Suisse loss guarantee
[nL8N3811DT ]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
((foo.yunchee@thomsonreuters.com; +32 2 585 2866; Reuters
Messaging: foo.yunchee.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))