Nomura may Appeal Against European €129 Million Antitrust Fine

Nomura Holdings, Inc. (Nomura) announced that it will consider, among other options, an appeal against the European Commission's decision to fine Nomura EUR 129,573,000 for anti-competitive behavior, following a thorough examination of the content of the Decision.

The European Commission issued the decision on the company and its U.K. subsidiary, Nomura International plc (NIplc) on May 20, alleging that the firms had infringed European Union competition law.

The decision was a result of certain historic behavior by two former NIplc employees. The European Commission found that for a period of approximately 10 months in 2011, two traders of NIplc had continued to share prices and volumes offered in the run-up to the auctions in multilateral chat rooms, which impacted the activities in the primary and secondary markets for European Government Bonds, in order to gain an illegal edge in the market. As such, the Commission alleged that NIplc had engaged in anti-competitive conduct in the European Economic Area.

However, the leading Asian financial services firm that launched an electronic foreign exchange (e-FX) pricing and trading engine in Singapore last week​, highlighted in its notice that the decision would not have a negative impact on its consolidated results for the fiscal year ending March 2022, as it had already set aside a provision for the full amount of the fine.

In addition to Nomura and its subsidiary, the European Commission has issued its decision against five other financial institutions for their involvement in a bonds trading cartel between 2007 and 2011, including UBS and UniCredit. The two banks also faced a fine totaling €242 million, while other banks, Bank of America, Portigon and Natixis, were not fined for some reason.