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The European Commission has "struck a blow" against six European banks on December 4, notes El País. The European Commissioner for Comptition announced fines totalling €1.71bn for Royal Bank of Scotland, Société Générale, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Citigroup and the brokerage RP Martin for manipulating interest rates "to their advantage", points out the daily. The interest rates in question, notably the Euribor, have an impact on "thousands of mortgages, savers and companies" through derivatives and other financial products.
El País argues in its editorial that this amounts to "dissuasive punishment" and that Brussels is "finally" responding to fraud —
The implicit message is that the community mechanism is ready to take action in response to any attempt to distort markets and it will do so with specific decisions that do not take into account the names of those to be punished.
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