EU fines six groups including Deutsche and SocGen for rate-fixing Four of the biggest US and eurozone banks were dragged into the Libor scandal for the first time on Wednesday when the European Commission hit them with fines for their roles in two rate-rigging cartels. Europe's top competition enforcer levied a record €1.7bn in fines on banks including Deutsche Bank, Société Générale, JPMorgan and Citi. For those four banks, the settlement was the first admission they had played a part in a scandal that has rocked global finance and resulted in dozens of traders and several top executives losing their jobs. Before the commission imposed its highest ever cartel fine, the five previous settlements involved just one eurozone bank and no US institutions - prompting private claims from UK bankers that some regulators were acting with national bias. Authorities in the UK, US and other jurisdictions have so far settled with UK financial institutions Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and ICAP, with Switzerland's UBS and with Dutch lender Rabobank over Libor. The EU's multi-party settlements bring the total tally of penalties for benchmark manipulation to $5.8bn, a sum that is expected to rise as regulators conclude probes and as private lawsuits - up to 50 in the US alone - stack up. The commission's fines follow a sweeping two-year probe into separate conspiracies to fix the Japan-focused Yen Libor and its European sister benchmark Euribor, which allegedly involves a total of up to 11 financial groups. Joaquín Almunia, the EU competition commissioner, said the cartels were "appalling examples of the misconduct" in the financial sector. Five banks and a broker agreed to pay fines for taking part in at least one of the cartels; Barclays and UBS admitted wrongdoing but were spared fines for having alerted authorities to the issue. The remainder rejected settlements and are likely to face formal antitrust charges from Brussels. Deutsche Bank and RBS accepted taking part in both cartels and will pay fines of €725m and €391m respectively, while SocGen will pay €466m for its role in the Euribor cartel. In the Yen Libor-related case, JPMorgan accepted a fine of €79.8m, Citi agreed to a penalty of €70m, and RP Martin, the broker will pay €247,000 for facilitating the cartel. UBS would have received a fine totalling €2.5bn had it not won immunity for Yen Libor, more than the combines penalties put together. Barclays" fine for Euribor transgressions would have totalled €690m without immunity, the commission said. Several banks and interdealer brokers - HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and Crédit Agricole for Euribor and the broker ICAP for Yen Libor - rejected a settlement and could face charges and fines at a later point. Mr Almunia said the fines were "not the end of the story." In addition to pursuing the holdouts, the commission is probing a possible cartel on Swiss Franc Libor and is reviewing possible evidence of collusion among foreign exchange traders.