Seven banks under probe for metals price fixing

Geneva

SWISS competition authorities said on Monday they were investigating UBS, HSBC, Deutsche Bank and other major banks for suspected price fixing in the trade of precious metals like gold and silver.

The Swiss Competition Commission (Comco) said it was probing whether seven banks had colluded to manipulate prices in the precious metals market.

The watchdog said in a statement that it had "opened an investigation against two Swiss banks, UBS and Julius Baer, as well as against the foreign financial institutions Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Barclays, Morgan Stanley and Mitsui".

Comco, which opened a preliminary investigation in February, said it now had indications that the banks had "po…