Staff at the European Commission's competition directorate (DGIV) in Brussels like to refer to the June 23 events as a "dawn raid" in fact they were unannounced house searches of the seven biggest banks in Vienna. The men from Brussels struck at the civilized hour of 9.00am, calling at each institution's front door and asking to see the chief executive. The investigators even postponed searching three of the seven banks until the next day.
DGIV was acting on a tip-off well over a year old, so it didn't expect to catch Austrian bankers with their trousers down. The investigators were polite but firm, relying on chaps from the Austrian economics ministry to do the tough stuff, like opening cupboard doors. "We don't force locks and we don't strip-search people," says a source close to the Brussels team. They were looking for any files and computer documents that referred to meetings of the so-called Lombard Club.
There is no secret in Austria about the Lombard Club, a lunch held once a month at the hotel Bristol by chief executives of Austria's top banks, at which they discuss everything from the euro and the world economy to interest rates and next month's menu.