Banking cartels investigated using the Lombard Club case study

Scientific Essay from the year 2018 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, , language: English, abstract: This paper deals with cartels with a focus on the banking sector. This will be explained or examined using the case study of the Lombard Club (banking cartel in Austria around 1995).

The second chapter uses industrial economics to provide the basis for understanding restric-tions of competition, as well as cartels, supplier concentration, barriers to entry and their effects on the market.

In the third chapter, this market, which is imperfect because of betting restrictions, is exa-mined and analysed more specifically for the banking sector. Here the restrictive cooperation between banks and its effects on the market are described.

The fourth chapter examines the Austrian situation in the 1990s (beginning of cartel forma-tions and cartel agreements (including the formation of the Lombard Club). Here the situation on the financial market in 1990 is analysed. Furthermore, statements are made on competition and market concentration. The theories developed previously are used as a basis for this.

The fifth chapter focuses on the Lombard Club and its structures and facts about the cartel. It analyses the distortive measures of the so-called Club of Bankers in Austria in order to show how the measures have affected the Austrian banking market. The theoretical foundations previously elaborated will also serve as a basic understanding in this context.

The sixth chapter provides a summary of this topic and a conclusion with an outlook on the cartel situation in Austria and the EU.