Nasdaq and Deutsche Börse were raided as part of an EU antitrust investigation

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Nasdaq and Deutsche Börse have been raided by EU officials investigating whether the exchange groups may have been involved in antitrust violations related to derivatives.

On Monday evening, the European Commission said it had carried out unannounced inspections at the offices of companies in two countries in the bloc for possible anti-competitive practices.

The EU’s executive arm focuses on financial derivatives, which are contracts that track the price of an underlying asset such as a bond, stock or interest rate.

“We confirm the EU Commission’s investigation and are cooperating fully,” Deutsche Börse said in a statement on Tuesday.

“We are aware of an investigation initiated by the European Commission involving the derivatives market,” Nasdaq said in a statement to the Financial Times, adding that the company was “committed to fully cooperating with the European Commission and supporting the relevant authorities with the investigation.” .

The EU said the raids were aimed at determining whether the companies had breached EU law by engaging in “restrictive business practices”. The commission declined to comment when asked by the Financial Times about the identity of the companies targeted.

A person close to Deutsche Börse said the EU was looking at a “very limited area of ​​the derivatives business” and that the company’s lawyers had decided there was “no need” to foresee possible fines.

EU investigators said the raids did not necessarily mean the companies were involved in anti-competitive practices and did not set a specific deadline to end the investigation.

“The length of the investigation depends on a number of factors, including the complexity of each case, the extent to which the companies concerned cooperate with the commission and the exercise of their right of defence,” the commission said on Monday.

The US parent of Nasdaq is one of the world’s largest exchange groups, and the company’s EU exchanges include the main markets of Sweden, Denmark and Finland. It also offers trading and clearing of equity, fixed income and commodity derivatives.

Deutsche Börse is the largest stock exchange group in the EU by market value, managing the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Eurex — the region’s largest derivatives trading venue.

Eurex trades equity, commodity, debt and foreign exchange derivatives, and more than 154 million contracts were traded last month on the Eschborn exchange, according to company data.

Deutsche Börse also owns a 75% stake in the European Energy Exchange, which is based in Leipzig and allows investors to trade energy, gas and other commodity derivatives.

Last year, Swedish authorities investigated Nasdaq Stockholm, checking whether the exchange failed to report insider trading.

Financial services are not the only sector that has come under scrutiny from regulators in Brussels. In July 2021, the EU fined BMW and Volkswagen €875 million for colluding to prevent the implementation of clean emissions technology.