South Korea fines 15 bond dealers 1.6 trillion won for collusion
SEOUL, Nov 11 : South Korea's Fair Trade Commission said on Wednesday that the regulator levied fines totalling 1.6 trillion won ($1.2 billion) on 15 domestic brokerage firms and banks for colluding at government bond auctions for more than three years.
The regulator said that from January 2020 to June 2023, the 15 primary dealers exchanged information by phone or the Telegram messaging app on their bidding yields one or two minutes before the deadlines in 150 government bond auctions.
In 145 of those auctions, they directly agreed on bidding yields and volumes, the commission said.
Such activities resulted in an artificial rise in South Korean bond yields, the FTC said.
The FTC said it expects the penalty to foster effective competition in bond auctions and increase the efficiency of national fiscal management.
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