EC slaps €485m fine on HSBC, JPMorgan, Agricole for Euribor cartel

(ShareCast News) - Competition regulators at the European Commission have fined HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and Crédit Agricole €485m for participating in a cartel in euro interest rate derivatives.The European Union's executive arm said the banks had breached EU antitrust rules by colluding on the key euro interest rate derivative pricing elements and exchanging sensitive information via corporate chat-rooms and instant messaging services.HSBC, which was found to have participated for only one months, was made to pay a fine of only €33.6m, with JPMorgan hit with €337.2m and Agricole €114.7m.Unlike several cartel members which settled with the Commission in 2103 and paid a €1.49bn fine, Crédit Agricole, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase chose not to settle.Interest rate derivatives are financial products such as forward rate agreements, interest rate swaps or interest rate options, which are used by companies to manage the risk of interest rate fluctuations or for speculation, with a benchmark interest rates including the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (Euribor) and the Euro Over-Night Index Average (Eonia) for euro interest rate derivatives.The EC investigation found traders at the banks were in regular contact through corporate chat-rooms or instant messaging services to fix the the Euribor rate, which is meant to reflect the cost of interbank lending in euros and is based on individual quotes submitted daily by a panel of banks to a calculation agent.A cartel was found to have been in place between September 2005 and May 2008, involving Barclays, Crédit Agricole, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, RBS and Société Générale, EC antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said: "A sound and competitive financial sector is essential for investment and growth. Banks have to respect EU competition rules just like any other company operating in the single market."