Credit Suisse FX Fine Reduced, Verdict Stands

The General Court of the European Union has reduced a fine levied on Credit Suisse, now part of UBS, for its role in the FX chat room scandal, however it has upheld the original finding that the bank’s traders were involved in the “Sterling Lads” Bloomberg chat room where confidential information was exchanged.

UBS, which acquired Credit Suisse following the latter’s financial troubles, was granted conditional immunity from fines over the issue for early reporting at the time the issue broke, however Credit Suisse was fined just over EUR 83 million.

In its ruling, the General Court says that the pleas on which UBS relied as it sought to contest the original decision of the European Commission on the grounds that the latter had wrongly found them to be involved in an anticompetitive agreement, are “unfounded”.  Consequently, the court has rejected the application seeking annulment of the Commission’s decision on those grounds.

The court did find, however, that UBS rightly claimed that certain data used by the European Commission in determining the proxy for the value of Credit Suisse’s trades were less complete and reliable than those proposed for that purpose by Credit Suisse during the administrative procedure.

“The General Court finds that the Commission therefore failed to comply with the guidelines on the method of setting fines, pursuant to which it is for the Commission to rely on the best available figures, and miscalculated the basic amount of the fine that it imposed on Credit Suisse,” the decision states.

Accordingly, the court ordered that Credit Suisse’s fine, now to be paid by UBS of course, be reduced to EUR 28.9 million.