EU blocks Citi, 9 other banks from some bond sales over antitrust breaches

The European Union is temporarily freezing out 10 banks from taking part in a series of bond sales under the bloc’s pandemic debt issuance program as it carries out an assessment of their previous breaches of antitrust rules.

Banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Barclays Plc have been blocked from arranging individual syndicated transactions for the NextGenerationEU program by the European Commission.

There will be “a careful assessment of whether the primary dealers found guilty of breaching antitrust rules have taken necessary remedial measures to terminate these practices and are ready to undertake to take