LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Bank of Scotland is one of eight banks being probed by European authorities for its possible role in a euro bond trading cartel, Bloomberg reported on Thursday citing a source.
The European Commission said in January it was investigating the unidentified banks for a scheme that distorted sovereign bond trading markets from 2007 to 2012.
The Commission’s powerful antitrust arm said some traders at the eight banks exchanged commercially sensitive information and coordinated trading strategies on euro-denominated bonds, mainly through online chatrooms.
However, it said the charges did not imply anti-competitive conduct was a general practice in the market.
The European Commission and RBS declined to comment.
The charge came as a further blow to Europe’s banks, which have already paid billions of euros in misconduct fines since the financial crisis.
RBS settled a major fine last year after agreeing a $4.9 billion penalty with U.S. regulators for past mis-selling of toxic mortgage-backed securities.
The majority state-owned bank posts full-year results for 2018 on Friday.
Reporting By Lawrence White and Iain Withers; Additional reporting by John O'Donnell; Editing by Rachel Armstrong and Edmund Blair
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