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(Bloomberg) — Deutsche Boerse AG and Nasdaq Inc. said they were raided by European Union antitrust watchdogs who suspect the firms may have been involved in a cartel related to “financial derivatives.”
A Deutsche Boerse spokesperson confirmed that the company was hit by the EU’s unannounced inspections on Monday, and that it is “fully cooperating” with the probe. A Nasdaq spokesperson said that it is “committed to fully cooperate” with the EU and “support the relevant authorities with the investigation”
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The European Commission said that raids took place across two EU states and targeted firms may “have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit restrictive business practices.” Officials gave no further details.
While so-called dawn raids can be a precursor for fines of as much as 10% of companies’ global sales, regulators seldom levy penalties of that size. The EU’s antitrust arm also pointed out that while the companies are under suspicion, they’re not yet guilty of any wrongdoing. There is no legal deadline for the conclusion of the commission’s investigation.
The raids follow on just three months after Deutsche Boerse’s European Energy Exchange AG aborted plans to buy Nasdaq’s Nordic power trading and clearing business, amid mounting EU competition concerns over the deal to cement its role as the biggest electricity exchange in the world. Officials often find reasons to dig further into companies after merger probes.
The inspections mark the latest round of a decade of EU antitrust probes targeting the finance industry and rigging of key benchmarks. The cases included how traders swapped information in chat-rooms to distort pricing components for derivatives as well as to manipulate currency markets, bonds and government-guaranteed securities.
The investigations followed EU approval for government support to keep many European lenders alive during the financial crisis in the wake of the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
(Updates with details of EEX-Nasdaq deal probe in fifth paragraph.)
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