BRUSSELS, Nov 6 (Reuters) -

Credit Suisse, now part of UBS, and Credit Agricole

on Wednesday lost their first challenges against

million-euro fines issued by EU antitrust regulators in 2021 for

taking part in a bond cartel.

The European Commission handed out a 11.9 million euro fine

to Credit Suisse and a 3.9 million euro fine to Credit Agricole,

saying the cartel operated in the European secondary trading

market related to U.S. denominated supra-sovereign, sovereign

and agency (SSA) bonds.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which also took part in the

cartel, received a 12.6 million euro penalty while Deutsche

Bank, which alerted the wrongdoing to the EU antitrust enforcer,

avoided a 21.5-million-euro fine.

The Luxembourg-based General Court sided with the EU

competition enforcer.

"The General Court of the European Union confirms the

Commission's finding of an infringement and maintains the amount

of the fines imposed in 2021," the tribunal said.

The banks can appeal on matters of law to the Court of

Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Europe's top court.

Traders at the four banks colluded on trading

strategies, exchanged sensitive pricing information and

coordinated on prices over five years via chatrooms on Bloomberg

terminals, according to the Commission.

The financial sector has been hit with billion euro

fines by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic in recent

years for rigging financial benchmarks and taking part in

foreign exchange cartels.

The cases are Judgments in Cases T-386/21 Credit Agricole

and Credit agricole Corporate and Investment Bank v Commission

and T-406/21 UBS Group and Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) v

Commission.