Eight lenders sued in US for alleged European government bond price rigging
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A group of investors filed a lawsuit in the US against eight lenders, accusing them of conspiring to rig the European government bond market between 2007 and 2012.
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The class-action complaint, which was presented on Monday night before the US District Court in New Haven, Connecticut, followed the 31 January accusation by the European Commission against the same lenders.
According to media reports cited by Reuters, RBS and Bank of America were among the lenders whose bond traders Brussels believed might have shared commercially-sensitive information and colluded in their trading strategies, mainly via the use of online chat-rooms.
The European Commission had reportedly not disclosed the names of the lenders involved in its lawsuit.
Neither of the two lenders had reportedly responded when contacted by Reuters.
The European Union's executive arm had alleged that, by working between them, traders from those eight banks had artificially widened the 'bid ask' spreads quoted to clients, thus increasing both the cost of each transaction for their clients while at the same time lowering the prices of the sovereign bonds.