HSBC

By Foo Yun Chee

European Union antitrust regulators charged Europe's biggest bank HSBC, US peer JPMorgan and France's Credit Agricole on Tuesday with rigging financial benchmarks linked to the euro, exposing them to potential fines.

The European Commission also said it would charge broker ICAP soon for suspected manipulation of the yen Libor financial benchmark.

Ex-Finance Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou will have to give testimony by June 11 in a special court, where he will be tried for allegedly doctoring the so-called Lagarde list of depositors.

It has emerged that five members of the Financial Crimes Squad have already given evidence to special magistrate Iosif Tsalaganidis, who will preside.

The National Bank of Greece has priced its share offer at 2.00-2.60 euros a share, in a placing worth up to 2.5 billion euros, two sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

“There has been incredibly broad-based demand,” one of the sources said.

Greece's largest bank National Bank (NBG) will issue a 5-year, fixed-rate bond to raise up to 750 million euros ($1.04 billion) and boost its liquidity, the bank said in a stock market filing on Thursday.

The special magistrate appointed to investigate whether Giorgos Papaconstantinou tampered with the Lagarde list of Greeks who had deposits at a Geneva branch of HSBC is expected to call the former finance minister to testify after Easter, source said on Friday.

 Timing will depend on the spread between Greek and Portuguese yields

By Sotiris Nikas

The government is moving ahead with its plan for emancipation from its international creditors through the issue of new sovereign debt, with the Finance Ministry speeding up its efforts so that the bonds can be successfully issued at the end of April.

The Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE) has started making some headway with its investigation into a list of Greeks with deposits at a bank in Switzerland after the number of staff assigned to the case was increased from four to 16.

Bulgaria's Finance Ministry has picked a consortium of three banks, JP Morgan, Citibank and HSBC, to sell government bonds worth BGN 3 B on international markets.