BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe’s top court on Thursday confirmed the annulment of an EU antitrust fine handed out to HSBC in 2016 for rigging the Euribor financial benchmark together with six other banks.
“The Court of Justice upholds the annulment of the 33.6 million euro fine imposed on the HSBC Group,” the Luxembourg-based EU Court of Justice (CJEU) said.
The European Commission had initially fined HSBC 33.6 million euros ($36.1 million) but a lower tribunal scrapped the penalty over the watchdog’s insufficient reasoning. The case subsequently went to the CJEU.
The EU competition enforcer issued another decision in 2021 with a reduced penalty of 31.7 million euros for HSBC.
EU, U.S. and UK regulators have in recent years fined banks billions of euros for manipulating various benchmark interest rates and the foreign exchange market.
The case is C-883/19 P HSBC Holdings and Others v Commission.
($1 = 0.9310 euros)
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee in Brussels and BenoitV Van Ovestraeten in Paris)
