OREANDA-NEWS. December 24, 2012. The Competition Council of the Republic of Lithuania announced the final resolution on investigation of cash management, claiming that the banks DnB, SEB and Swedbank and the security company G4S limited the possibilities for other companies in the market in providing the services of cash management, and thus breached the Competition Act.

The Competition Council has fined all the parties involved with the total amount of more than LTL 57m: SEB LTL 24.8m, Swedbank LTL 14.2m (ca EUR 4m), DnB LTL 8.6m and G4S LTL 9.4m.

The position of Swedbank regarding the resolution on the investigation is as follows:

We are surprised about the resolution by the Council, which in our opinion does not correspond to and does not reflect the arguments provided by the bank as well as other material and information provided during the investigation;

We do not share the Council's conclusion of the investigation and do not agree with resolution that the bank breached the Competition Act and has to pay a fine;

The bank will appeal against the resolution in the court. The deadline for the appeal is January 9th, 2013.

The Competition Council started the investigation on the banks (SEB, Swedbank and DnB) and the security company G4S in the end of 2012. On June 2nd, 2012 the preliminary conclusions of the investigation were provided. After the banks fine-tuned the arguments as well as supplied with the additional information, the investigation ran until July 2012. The final resolution was announced on December 20th, 2012.