Swiss watchdog probing seven banks over precious metals price fixing

Swiss competition authorities are investigating seven banks over possible price fixing in the precious metals market.

The Swiss competition commission said on Monday that it is probing UBS, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Julius Baer, Barclays, Morgan Stanley and Mitsui.

The commission said it had reason to believe there were possible illegal competition agreements between the banks to coordinate the prices, namely the spreads - i.e. the difference between the bid and offer price - of gold, silver, platinum and palladium.

The investigation is expected to be completed in 2016 or 2017 and any banks found to have gone against Switzerland’s competition laws could face fines of up 10% of revenues.