The Spanish banking group Banco de Sabadell S.A. has been fined €1.6m (£1.4m) by The European Central Bank (ECB) for buying back capital without permission, according to a ECB press release.
In the period 1 January 2014 to 7 November 2017, Banco de Sabadell bought back some of its capital without the permission of the banking supervision authority.
Banco de Sabadell has appealed the decision to impose financial penalty at the Court of Justice of the European Union, the ECB said.
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The ECB said in its press release: “The penalty has been imposed in respect of the bank repurchasing its CET1 instruments from 1 January 2014 to 7 November 2016 without the prior permission of the banking supervision authority. This constitutes a continuous breach of own funds requirements in that period.”
The banking group bought the challenger bank TSB in 2015 from Lloyds Banking Group in a takeover of £1.7bn.
The ECB is responsible for the stability of banking and the Euro currency within the European Union (EU) and was started in 1999 along with the introduction of the Euro.
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