A raft of investment banks have been hit with multimillion euro fines after the EU Commission found traders had operated a bond market “cartel” around the time of the financial crisis.

Bank of America, Natixis, Nomura, RBS (now NAtWest), UBS, UniCredit and WestLB (now Portigon) all breached EU antitrust rules over their dealings in the primary and secondary market for European government bonds, according to a 20 May ruling.