Swiss watchdog fines seven banks US$100m for rate-rigging

Geneva

SWITZERLAND handed out about US$100 million in antitrust fines against seven United States and European banks for participating in cartels to manipulate widely used financial benchmarks.

JPMorgan Chase & Co was fined 33.9 million francs (S$47.8 million) for operating a cartel with Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) for more than a year, with the aim of influencing the Swiss franc Libor benchmark, which is tied to the London interbank offered rate, Switzerland's Competition Commission (Comco) said in a statement on Wednesday. RBS received immunity for revealing the existence of the cartel, which operated between March 2008 and July 2009.

"RBS and JPMorgan tried to distort the normal course of the pricing of interest-rate derivatives denominated in Swiss franc," the commission wrote. "They occasionally discussed the future Swiss franc Libor rate submissions of one of the banks and at times exchanged information con…