Brussels - The European Union's (EU's) competition watchdog says it is investigating the practices of some the world's biggest banks as well as a financial data firm and a clearing house in the market for credit default swaps.
The European Commission says it is probing whether the 16 banks active in the CDS market - including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and JP Morgan - colluded with Markit to give important data on their activities only to that firm.
In a second case, it is also investigating whether nine of
those banks received preferential treatment from ICE Clear Europe, the biggest
CDS clearing house in the EU.
The commission says such agreements could have kept other clearing houses from entering the market.