“European Union antitrust regulators are poised to levy large fines against a group of global banks tied to their alleged attempts to manipulate benchmark interest rates, according to industry officials briefed on the discussions.

“The fines, against six banks, are expected to be announced within the next month, one official said, bringing to an end a more than two-year antitrust investigation conducted by Brussels competition authorities into whether banks colluded to manipulate widely used benchmarks, such as the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and its lesser-known cousin, the euro interbank offered rate, or Euribor.

“The penalties are likely to be in the hundreds of millions of euros for individual banks, with penalties possibly approaching €1 billion ($1.35 billion) for large banks that competition regulators believe were heavily involved in rate-rigging, the officials said. That would likely make the penalties among the largest ever imposed by EU regulators.”

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