The CMA said the activities took place from 2009 to 2013 and involved individual traders at two banks sharing 'competitively sensitive' information regarding the pricing of UK gilts in separate bilateral online Bloomberg chatrooms.
Employees at Citi, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Canada all unlawfully exchanged information about gilt trades via one-to-one chat rooms, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Friday.
Juliette Enser, executive director of competition enforcement at the CMA, said: 'We are pleased that we have been able to settle these 5 cases involving the past sharing of competitively sensitive information about pricing.'.
Each of the four's fines included 10 to 20 per cent reductions for settling before the CMA issued its 'statement of objections' - a notice firms receive saying they are under investigation for violating competition law.
Competition regulators have fined four major banks more than £100million for sharing sensitive information on the purchase and sale of UK government debt.
