“I think the 10 banks also cannot manipulate the interbank market because they, the 10 banks, set the ROBOR at certain times of the day. It is like a picture of the market at that time. But apart from 10 banks out of a total of 34 banks, there are also others that trade during that day. Basically, we are talking about a continuous market, a continuous money market. Basically, we take a picture at a certain moment of the day. And it’s true that we often don’t like what we see. It’s true: and we don’t like it. But I believe there is more transparency here than in the creation of ROBOR. I would not like to go back to gas and energy prices because there is not much transparency,” Vista Bank Vice President Cornel Stanescu said at the Romanian Banking Forum organized by Finmedia.

“I would like to point out here what the new normal in the price of money (percent-nn) means because there has been a lot of discussion about the creation of ROBOR and you have also seen that we have all been asking ourselves. This level of ROBOR is mainly determined by the interbank market, where supply and demand actually determine the terms (one month, 3 months, 6 months) and the interest rate at which banks trade with each other. I think it is very difficult to say that we could create a fake ROBOR. However, the market sets a normal price for the sources we attract,” Stanescu also said.

His comments came just a day before the director of the Competition Council’s Services Markets Directorate, Adrian Comanescu, said in Alba Iulia that the personal phones of those involved in the alleged manipulation of ROBOR had been scrutinized. And that the amount of data to be analyzed as part of the investigation launched at the 10 banks involved in setting the ROBID/ROBOR base rates is very large.

“In the verification and control procedure we conducted, we received permission from the appeals court. In addition to the controls we carry out on electronic equipment, work phones, laptops, computers, etc., we have received a number of authorizations to also check the personal phones of the people involved. And then we did that too. The amount of data that we have taken is quite large, it will need to be analyzed – we are talking about hundreds of transactions, thousands of transactions, short periods of time – and then this amount of data that needs to be processed will take some time. But we are trying to move quickly and come to the results of this investigation in a reasonable period of time,” said Adrian I agree, according to Agerpres.

He noted that in this case it is an official investigation.

For her part, the director general of the Competition Council, Daniela Badile, explained why investigations generally take longer.

“This is a complicated procedure (…) You go to the company, copy computers. Can you imagine, in such a complex field as banking, to go and copy the data from a computer, then it is processed at the headquarters of the Council, in the presence of the lawyers of the parties, various procedural exceptions apply, so the procedure is extremely detailed from that point of view. Then all conclusions must be carefully substantiated. After that is completed internally, the case team completes its analytical part, which becomes This investigative report, in turn, goes through a series of internal filters,” said Daniela Basila.

She added that if the investigation also concerns a violation of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, this report is also sent to the European Commission, where it also has a deadline for analysis.

“After that, the report is sent to the parties, in this case the 10 investigated banks, and a hearing is held before the plenary meeting of the Competition Council. In this hearing, the procedure is similar to that before a judge. The team presents a point of view, then the parties are given the floor, the defense takes place, and only after this procedure is completed, a final decision is made, which is then submitted to the court,” said Daniela Badila.

She noted that there are a number of procedural rights that you must guarantee. “This is the right to access the file. This is a very detailed issue, because the level of fines can reach up to 10% of the company’s total turnover, and, therefore, procedural guarantees are extremely broad in this area,” he added, the general director said.

Since November 1, the Competition Council has carried out several unannounced inspections of 10 banks involved in the setting of the ROBID/ROBOR reference rates, and the documents raised during the actions are being analyzed by the Romanian Competition Authority under special procedures.

According to the press release of the antimonopoly agency, the inspections took place as part of the investigation of possible agreements between 10 banks to fix the ROBOR interest rate at the maximum possible level as part of the “fixing” procedure (setting the base rates for ROBOR and ROBID). Thus, the investigation concerns the activities of banks on the interbank money market both during the fixing procedure and within 15 minutes after the “fixing”, namely the attraction and placement of interbank deposits by participating banks in the setting of ROBOR/ROBID base rates at the national level.

According to the President of the Competition Council Bohdan Chiritsa, the problem is not the level of the price from the point of view of the competition agency, but whether this price was formed by anti-competitive practices.