European Union antitrust regulators announced Monday that they had reached a "preliminary conclusion" that 13 of the largest banks had violated EU antitrust regulations by colluding to prevent exchanges from entering the credit derivatives business. The regulators tell the story like this: Back in the days before the financial crisis, the Deutsche Börse and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange wanted to enter the gigantic derivatives business by creating swaps that would trade on exchanges. This threatened the lucrative over-the-counter business of the big banks, so they got together to shut out the exchanges. The basic complaint is that the banks (Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Bear...
↧