A Comissão Europeia saúda a decisão do Trib. de 1.ª Instância sobre o "Lombard Club" (cartel no sector bancário)

Reference: MEMO/06/492

Date: 14/12/2006

The European Commission welcomes today's judgment by the European Court of First Instance dismissing the action by eight Austrian banks to set aside the Commission's June 2002 decision against a cartel of eight Austrian banks, the so-called "Lombard Club" (cases T-259/02 to T-264/02 and T-271/02). The CFI notably confirmed that the cartel belonged to the worst category of illegal pricing fixing agreements. The CFI emphasised that one of the aggravating circumstances in setting the fines was that the far reaching cartel occurred in the banking sector which is of key importance for the economy of an entire country, in this case Austria. The CFI reduced the total fines of €124,260,000 by a €3,795,000 for lack of evidence regarding the market share of one bank. The new total is €120,465,000 so that 97% of the original fines have been maintained.",

On 11 June 2002 the Commission fined eight Austrian banks for participating in the so-called "Lombard Club" cartel (see IP/02/844).\n This highly institutionalised price-fixing scheme covered the entire Austrian territory "down to the smallest village", as one bank put it. Banks participating in the cartel fixed deposit, lending and other rates to the detriment of businesses and consumers in Austria. The cartel started well before the accession of Austria to the European Economic Area in 1994 and ended when the Commission carried out surprise inspections at the banks' premises in June 1998. The Commission levied fines on eight Austrian banks of €124,260,000.

The CFI's ruling boosts the Commission's ongoing efforts to bring more competition to the financial services sector. Since 2005 the Commission is undertaking sector inquiries into retail banking and business insurance in order to identify and thereafter remedy competition problems in the European financial services industry. The Commission published interim reports in April and July 2006 highlighting preliminary competition concerns due to structural, behavioural and technical impediments to more competition in the retail banking sector (the definitive report is due to be published in early 2007). An interim report on business insurance is due to be published in Spring 2007. Austria is mentioned among other Member States on several occasions in the first interim report on payment cards (see IP/06/496 and MEMO/06/164). This report will set out concrete suggestions for addressing competition problems identified in the report.