By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -UBS is expected to secure unconditional European Union antitrust approval for its planned takeover of struggling Credit Suisse, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, putting the Swiss bank closer to completing the deal.
UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse for 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.4 billion) in stock and to assume up to 5 billion francs in losses in March, in a shotgun merger engineered by Swiss authorities to avoid more market-shaking turmoil in global banking.
The European Commission, which is scheduled to finish its preliminary review of the deal by June 7, and Credit Suisse declined to comment.
UBS, which is twice as big as Credit Suisse by assets, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Both UBS and Credit Suisse are in a group of the 30 global systematically important banks watched closely by regulators, and Credit Suisse's failure would ripple throughout the entire financial system.
($1 = 0.8889 Swiss francs)