COMCO Closes Chapter on Financial Market Investigations
Bern, 18.12.2025 — Over a period of more than ten years and in nine separate proceedings, COMCO investigated agreements on the financial markets. The investigations involving twenty banks in total concerned the business areas of interest rate derivatives, foreign exchange spot trading and precious metals trading. COMCO concluded seven investigations with settlements and discontinued two proceedings. It imposed fines totaling CHF 237.5 million.
Every day, enormous amounts of money are circulating on the financial markets. In some cases, these movements were influenced by the banks under investigation, sometimes with the support of interdealer brokerage firms. During various periods of different lengths between 2005 and 2013, individual traders from competing banks entered into over twenty separate and distinct bilateral or multilateral agreements. They exchanged sensitive information about their transactions and trading strategies via company chat rooms, instant messaging services or by telephone.
These highly complex proceedings have kept COMCO busy for more than twelve years since the initial investigation was launched in 2012. During this time, well over ten million pages of electronic and telephone communications from traders and brokers were analyzed. Between 2016 and 2024, COMCO negotiated 35 settlements in four out of five proceedings on interest rate derivatives and in three proceedings on foreign exchange rates in several stages. In doing so, COMCO imposed fines totaling CHF 237.5 million. The costs of the proceedings totaled CHF 5.33 million.
All decisions are final and became res judicata. Further information, including an overview of all investigations, can be found in the summary of cases.