The Spanish Competition Authority fines four banks for price-fixing of financial derivative products ancillary to syndicated loans (Caixabank / Santander / Sabadell / BBVA)

The CNMC has just issued its Decision on financial derivatives (Decision), fining the accused banks (Santander, Sabadell, Caixa, BBVA) €91 million. The Decision refers, in particular, to the derivative products ancillary to syndicated loans, which goal is to insure borrowers against fluctuations of the interest rate to which the cost of the syndicated loan is indexed. The Decision considers that the accused banks have fixed such cost of the derivative products in a manner and at a level which breaches Articles 101 of the Treaty on Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and the national equivalent (Article 1 Competition Act). The Decision is over a hundred pages long, much of it dealing with factual explanations. This note provides an initial reading of the legal grounds of the