European Union targets 16 major banks in swaps market probes

[marmar]

The European Union's competition watchdog is investigating the practices of some of the world's largest banks, as well as a clearing house and a financial data firm, in the market for credit default swaps.

The two probes home in on a market that has come under fire for lacking transparency and allegedly worsening market turmoil during the financial crisis.

While the investigations focus on competition issues, they accompany a wider regulatory crackdown in Europe and the United States on credit default swaps and other derivatives and could have implications for the broader functioning of the market. In that market, several companies control trillions of dollars of financial instruments.

The European Commission said it is investigating whether nine big investment banks, including Barclays PLC and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., received unfair preferential treatment _ such as lower fees and profit-sharing deals _ from ICE Clear Europe and were therefore channeling their transactions only to that clearing house, by far the biggest for CDS in the EU. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.stltoday.com/business/national-and-international/article_50908478-0224-5941-aa04-48c52bf75267.html