It is a small, exclusive club of domestic and foreign banks, which comes every two weeks on the ninth floor of a building of the French Finance Ministry together. In the case of the authority for the issuance of the French state debt, Agence France Trésor regularly meet the representatives of those banks, which allowed France’s public debt as a First draw and then resell. From the list of those currently five of the ten “Primary Dealer” (“Spécialistes en Valeurs du Trésor, SVT”) is now the American Bank Morgan Stanley deleted. So it has to be decided by the Agence France Trésor, according to information from the Tuesday, on behalf of the French Ministry of Finance. Because, according to an investigation by the French stock exchange regulator, Morgan Stanley will have the prices for the debt instruments being manipulated.
Christian Schubert
economic correspondent in Paris.
F. A. Z. Twitter
The events are five years. On the morning of the 16. June 2015, have bought traders from Morgan Stanley in London in accordance with the information to the sec on the trading platform Eurex “aggressive,” a large quantity of futures contracts on French and German government bonds. A quarter of an hour later, they sold the contracts on the electronic platforms MTS France, BrokerTec and MTS Belgium, for a total of 1.15 billion Euro. The sec is of the view that the transaction served only to price manipulation. The purchase of a large quantity of futures contracts via Eurex have artificially driven the price upwards, which could make Morgan Stanley in the sale on the other platforms shortly after takes advantage of.
Bank repaid in 2019, a fine of 20 million euros
the Other market participants could be a result of the transaction a false image of the “true” relationship between the supply of and demand for French sovereign bonds. The purchase of large quantities of futures contracts have not complied with the usual strategy of the European traders table of Morgan Stanley in London, said. For the violations, the Bank had to pay in December 2019, a fine of 20 million euros. The debt Agency has accused Morgan Stanley to have you in 2017, not immediately on the investigation by the securities and exchange Commission informed.
The exclusion of the American Bank as a Primary Dealer is initially only for three months. However, it is not only for the reputation of the Bank is painful. The business as a Primary Dealer is known as a secure source of income, because the French government bonds sought after papers that are easy to sell on with a profit margin. In addition, the banks are happy to maintain good relations with the Ministry of Finance.
