Stephen Critchley considers which alleged competition law abuses by the banks are likely to lead to damages actions & which aren’t
In recent years, the world’s leading banks have been accused of breaching the antitrust laws of the US, Europe and other jurisdictions.
Results have varied. In Europe, for instance:
- the Commission found the banks infringed Art 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union by manipulating the Euribor and Yen Libor interest rate benchmarks; and
- its investigation into foreign exchange trading (FX) is ongoing; whereas
- other alleged benchmark manipulations, eg of ISDAfix and non-Yen Libor, have appeared to excite less interest from the Commission; and
- it closed its investigation into credit default swaps (CDSs) without finding infringement.
On 1 October 2015, Sch 8 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 came into force introducing a raft of measures to facilitate damages actions by victims of anticompetitive behaviour.
A key reform was the introduction of an “opt out” collective proceedings regime in the Completion Appeal Tribunal (the CAT). The regime is similar to US class actions; appropriate for pursuing damages
