EU raids financial services firms as part of antitrust investigation into derivatives

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The EU said on Monday it would carry out surprise inspections of two financial services firms in two member states over suspicions of breaching antitrust rules on derivatives.

The document does not provide the names of the companies or information on which countries investigators, working with the competition authorities of each affected Member State, conducted raids in.

The Commission has concerns that the companies inspected may have breached EU antitrust rules prohibiting anti-competitive practices, the European Commission said in a statement.

“The products subject to controls are derivatives.”

As the EU executive body made clear, the raids do not mean that the companies should be found guilty of anti-competitive behaviour.

As stated, unannounced investigations are a preliminary stage of the investigation, and there is no legal deadline for concluding investigations into anti-competitive practices.

ub/gv