Citi, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Canada will pay fines totalling over £100 million.

Following an investigation by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the banks have agreed to pay fines for specific instances in which traders shared competitively sensitive information about aspects of the pricing of UK bonds. The sharing of information occurred in one-to-one exchanges between traders about the buying and selling of gilts and gilt asset swaps.

This conduct took place on various dates between 2009-2013, with the last exchanges occurring in 2010 for HSBC, 2012 for Morgan Stanley, and 2013 for each of Citi, Deutsche Bank and Royal Bank of Canada. Since then, the banks have implemented extensive compliance measures to ensure this behaviour does not happen again.

Each of the exchanges took place in separate bilateral online Bloomberg chatrooms between individual traders at two banks and included information relevant to the pricing of UK government bonds – specifically, gilts and gilt asset swaps.

In particular, each one-to-one exchange of information took place in relation to one or more of the following: firstly, the sale of gilts by the UK Debt Management Office via auctions on behalf of HM Treasury, secondly the subsequent buying and selling, i.e. trading, of gilts and gilt asset swaps, and thirdly the selling of gilts to the Bank of England – known as ‘buy back’. Not all banks were involved in unlawful exchanges in all three contexts.

Four banks – Citi, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Canada – have settled and agreed to pay fines totalling £104,460,000.

Deutsche Bank is exempt from a financial penalty as it alerted the CMA to its participation in the chats via the authority’s leniency policy. Citi applied for leniency during the CMA’s investigation and as a result has received a reduced fine.

In agreeing to settle with the CMA, the banks have agreed to pay these fines, bringing the investigation to a close.

The fines for each bank are:

• Citi: £17,160,000 – this includes a 35% leniency discount and a 20% reduction for settling in advance of the CMA issuing its Statement of Objections
• HSBC: £23,400,000 – this includes a 10% reduction for settling after the CMA issued its Statement of Objections
• Morgan Stanley: £29,700,000 – this includes a 10% reduction for settling after the CMA issued its Statement of Objections
• Royal Bank of Canada: £34,200,000 – this includes a 10% reduction for settling after the CMA issued its Statement of Objections

The fines take into account the length of time that has passed since the end of the infringements and the extensive compliance measures that the banks have implemented since then – some of which were in place before the start of the CMA’s investigation.

The firms have until 22 April 2025 to pay their fines.