By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - ICAP (L:IAP), the world's biggest interdealer broker, was fined 14.9 million euros (11 million pounds) on Wednesday for rigging the yen Libor financial benchmark, part of a crackdown by EU regulators against anti-competitive behaviour in the industry.
The European Commission said ICAP took part in several cartels, which included UBS (VX:UBSG), Royal Bank of Scotland (L:RBS), Deutsche Bank (DE:DBKGn), Citigroup (N:C), JPMorgan (N:JPM) and broker RP Martin.
All of the institutions, except ICAP, admitted wrongdoing and received a reduced total fine of 669.72 million euros in December 2013. UBS escaped a sanction because it alerted the rigging to the Commission.
The European Union antitrust authority said ICAP facilitated six of the seven cartels by disseminating misleading information to certain banks on the yen Libor panel and also used its contacts on the panel to influence the setting of the rates.
European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who is currently probing possible wrongdoing in the foreign exchange markets, said the decision sent a strong signal to the industry.
"(Tuesday's decision) marks the successful completion of our antitrust investigation in the Yen interest rate derivatives sector -- but not the end to our efforts to fight anticompetitive practices in financial markets," she said.
ICAP, one of 10 institutions fined by U.S. and European authorities in 2013 for rigging yen Libor benchmarks, said it would challenge the EU decision in court.
"This is a regulatory matter that has already been settled. It is not a competition issue, and the European Commission has presented no evidence that ICAP facilitated a competition law violation," the company said in a statement.
U.S. and European regulators have so far handed down billion of dollars in fines to more than 10 banks and brokerages for fixing various financial benchmarks.