GE Funding to pay $70M to resolve complaint

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Part of the finance arm of General Electric Co. will pay $70 million to resolve complaints about the company's role in anticompetitive activity in the municipal bond investments market. The Justice Department last Friday announced that GE Funding Capital Market Services Inc. also acknowledged illegal, anticompetitive conduct by its former traders. The company acknowledged that from 1999 through 2004, certain former GE Funding traders manipulated the bidding process on municipal investment and related contracts. Those contracts were used to invest the proceeds of, or manage the risks associated with, bond issuances by municipalities and other public entities. GE Funding will pay restitution and promised to cooperate fully with the Justice Department's Antitrust Division in its ongoing investigation into anticompetitive conduct in the municipal bond derivatives industry. Published: Tue, Dec 27, 2011