Citigroup

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has given the green light to the National Australia Bank’s proposed $1.2 billion acquisition of Citigroup’s Australian consumer business, finding the deal is not likely to substantially lessen competition.

A former JPMorgan managing director has said the three investment banks at the centre of an alleged cartel made individual decisions to trade “gently” in ANZ shares but were conscious of their fellow underwriters’ risks following a botched share placement in 2015.

JPMorgan bigwigs who are key witnesses for the prosecution in its cartel case over ANZ’s botched share placement in 2015 will be questioned by Citibank and Deutsche ahead of trial.

The ACCC’s practice of successively refining witness statements without saving draft versions was “quite unfair”, says a judge overseeing the competition regulator’s criminal cartel case over a botched ANZ share placement.

Lawyers for JPMorgan went to the ACCC’s office to review a draft statement of the investment bank’s then managing director Jeffrey Herbert-Smith, an immunity witness for the competition regulator in its troubled criminal cartel case over an ANZ share placement, a court has heard.

A judge has declined to quash the indictment in a high-profile criminal case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement but sent prosecutors back to the drawing board to remedy its defects, calling the state of affairs “a complete shemozzle”.

JPMorgan’s general counsel for Australia and New Zealand was allowed to sit in on witness interviews during an ACCC cartel investigation into ANZ’s $2.5 billion share placement despite allegedly being involved in the cartel conduct, a judge has heard.

In a major blow to the competition regulator’s high-profile price-fixing case over ANZ’s $2.5 billion capital raising, prosecutors have dropped all charges against the bank and its group treasurer, Rick Moscati.

A judge has given the green light to amended pleadings in a class action accusing major banks of entering a cartel agreement to rig foreign exchange rates, bringing a two-year fight over the pleadings closer to resolution.

Five enforcement officers of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will be cross-examined by lawyers for banks facing price fixing charges over their conduct following ANZ’s $2.5 billion capital raising six years ago.