The European Commission suspects that the German Stock Exchange, the Deutsche Börse and the American Nasdaq have agreed to act on the derivatives market. That said, the powerful Competition Department has opened an investigation antitrustas just announced by the EU Executive itself.
The Commission’s main suspicion is that Deutsche Börse and Nasdaq “may have reached agreements or maintained coordinated practices to avoid competing in the European Economic Area (which includes Norway, Iceland and Switzerland together with the 27 EU member states)”. Specifically, competition investigators focus on finding out whether the two market companies have “shared demand, coordinated pricing and exchanged sensitive commercial information.”
This investigation, in fact, had already begun in September 2024 when the Commission carried out surprise searches at the offices of both companies. And the initiative did not start, unlike other occasions, from a complaint from rival companies. It arose from the Commission itself “as part of an ex officio investigation into possible collusion in the financial derivatives sector”.
From now on the investigations begin which, as the Commission itself usually warns, must not end with a formal accusation. This step would be the next if, on the contrary, the competition provisionally concluded that the companies had indeed broken the market rules. However, there is no maximum legal time limit for antitrust investigations.
“We are investigating whether Deutsche Börse and Nasdaq may have acted collusively to avoid competing for the listing, trading and clearing of certain financial derivatives. The competition rules help to ensure fair and open competition between financial exchanges and to ensure the proper functioning of the Capital Markets Union, the cornerstone of innovation, financial stability and growth in the interest of all European citizens,” Spanish Vice-President of the European Commission Teresa Teresa said in the same statement. Ribera. in which the opening of the investigation was announced.
The German company Deutsche Börse is one of the largest in Europe and the one with the largest presence in the derivatives market of the Old Continent. The American Nasdaq, for its part, is a platform very present in Northern European countries: Sweden, Denmark, Iceland or the three Baltic republics, where it controls the stock markets. After the investigation became known, Deutsche Börse shares fell as much as 5%, before moderating slightly afterward.
