The convictions of five former Barclays traders jailed for manipulating benchmark interest rates have been overturned by the UK Court of Appeal, further weakening one of Britain’s most prominent financial misconduct prosecutions.
The court on Wednesday quashed the convictions of Jay Merchant, Jonathan Mathew, Philippe Moryoussef, Alex Pabon and Colin Bermingham. The men were convicted between 2016 and 2019 over allegations involving the manipulation of Libor and Euribor, benchmark rates that once influenced the pricing of hundreds of trillions of dollars in financial contracts worldwide.
The appeals followed a UK Supreme Court ruling that overturned the convictions of former UBS and Citigroup trader Tom Hayes and former Barclays trader Carlo Palombo. The Supreme Court found that juries in those cases had received inaccurate and unfair legal directions.
Appeal judges concluded that similar errors had affected the trials of the five former Barclays employees. The Serious Fraud Office, which prosecuted the original cases, did not oppose their appeals, although it maintained that properly directed juries could potentially have reached guilty verdicts.
The ruling represents another setback for the UK’s efforts to prosecute the Libor scandal, which became a major symbol of financial misconduct following the global financial crisis.
A further appeal involving former Deutsche Bank trader Christian Bittar is expected to be heard later this week.
Leave a comment