NEW DELHI : India's antitrust body is investigating the trustee units of State Bank of India, Axis Bank and IDBI Bank for suspected collusion on fees, triggering a lawsuit by a group representing them, documents seen by Reuters showed.
The Competition Commission of India in a confidential December order stated the Trustees Association of India - a body where the trio are founding members - last year"substantially" increased the fee for assisting companies raising debt and prevented members from going below a floor price, thereby hurting competition.
A finding of cartelisation could lead to a fine of up to three times the profit in each year the fee was fixed by the trustees, or 10per cent of annual revenue for the period of violation, whichever is more. The documents showed that when Muthoot protested, IDBI said in an August email"the new pricing structure is decided by the Trustee Association", adding that"any deviation by us in quoting the price would lead to adverse repercussion on us".