FAQs – The SSA Claim

The claim is a legal action against Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Crédit Agricole, Credit Suisse, and Deutsche Bank.

The banks participated in a cartel through a core group of traders working in their USD SSA bonds divisions, who were in regular contact with each other.

A bond is a type of debt security that enables entities to raise cash. Bonds are issued on the primary market and then traded by financial institutions on the secondary market. On the secondary market, potential customers, such as investment and pension funds, approach the banks in order to get an independent quotation of price and quantity available of the bonds of a specific issuer. Bonds are distinguished by currency. This particular case refers to SSA bonds issued in US dollars.

The traders, who were in direct competition, typically logged into multilateral chatrooms or bilateral chatrooms on Bloomberg terminals. They knew each other on a personal basis, thus creating a closed circle of trust. They provided each other with recurring updates on their trading activities, exchanged commercially sensitive information, coordinated on prices shown to their customers, or to the market in general and aligned their trading activities on the secondary market for these bonds.

The Commission’s investigation revealed that further to coordination on prices quoted to specific clients or the market in general, the traders at times agreed to refrain from bidding or offering, or to remove (or “kill”) a bid or offer from the market, when they might come into competition with one another; and to split trades between each other and combine or reduce their respective positions to meet a specific customer’s demand, without the customer being aware that it was dealing with more than one trader which meant that in practice the customer had limited choice;

The behaviour of the four banks violates EU rules that prohibit anticompetitive business practices such as collusion on prices (Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 53 of the EEA Agreement). The conduct took place between 2010 and 2015.

The claim is being brought in the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (also known as the CAT). The Competition Appeal Tribunal is a specialist court based in London. It has cross-disciplinary expertise in law, economics, business and accountancy, and hears and decides cases involving competition or economic regulatory issues. The CAT publishes its Rules and Guidance, together with information about what it does, on its website: www.catribunal.org.uk.

We have secured funding from a highly experienced global litigation funder. In addition, we have obtained after-the-event insurance to meet any adverse costs orders made against us.

Claimants are not required to pay any legal fees, nor do they run the risk of paying the defendants’ costs of defending the litigation.

Nothing. All costs are met by us. We are working with a specialist third party litigation funderto bring the claim. In return for its investment, the funder will receive a fee.

You will be entitled to your share of the damages if the claim is successful at trial or the Competition Appeal Tribunal approves a settlement between the claimants and the banks.

We will run the claim on your behalf so it will involve significantly less work to recover your losses than if you seek to recover your losses on an individual basis.

The claim will be brought at no cost to you, and there is no risk of you being liable for the banks’ costs in the event that the claim is unsuccessful.

The damages suffered by each individual claimant will be based on calculations carried out by experts. The experts will determine the difference between the price of all trades placed by claimants which were artificially inflated as a result of the cartels, and the price which claimants would have paid but for the banks’ manipulation of the market.

The sum of damages that you receive will be calculated by the claims administrator if settlement is reached or the claim is successful.

The legal process could take several years. It is possible that the case will settle without going to trial, in which case compensation could be available sooner.

As with any litigation, there can be no guarantee of recovery. However, there is no cost to you and no risk that you will be ordered to pay the banks’ costs if the claim is unsuccessful.

The best thing to do now if you believe you may have entered into relevant transactions is to register your interest on this website. We will then contact you.

We can conduct an initial assessment of the actual value of your damages. We therefore recommend that investors collect trading data relating to their purchases and sales and send them to us for analysis.

Updates about the claim will be sent to you on a regular basis. You can also check this website for updates and announcements.

The list of those who register on the website is confidential and will be shared only in due course with those instructed to pursue the claim on its behalf (e.g. its lawyers and experts).