The City traders jailed for rigging Libor and Euribor interest rates have had their convictions overturned by the Supreme Court after a lengthy legal battle.
Former UBS and Citigroup trader Tom Hayes, the first banker imprisoned over the scandal in 2015, had his name cleared today (23 July) after a 10-year fight. A panel of five justices concluded the judge in Hayes’s original hearing gave “inaccurate and unfair” instructions to the jury meaning he was “deprived” of a fair trial.
“It is not possible to say that if the jury had been properly directed, they would have been bound to return verdicts of guilty. The convictions are therefore unsafe and cannot stand,” the supreme court ruled.
The court also exonerated banker Carlo Palombo, who was sentenced to four years in prison in 2019 for rigging Euribor.
The court said: “When the flaws in the directions given at Mr Palombo’s trial are considered in combination, it cannot safely be assumed that, without them, the jury would have been bound to convict Mr Palombo, Thus, his conviction also cannot stand.”
Hayes was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison, reduced to 11 years on appeal, and was later released in January 2021 for his perceived role as a ringleader in fixing Libor between 2006 and 2010. Palombo was sentenced to four years in jail in 2019 but was also released in 2021, the same year Libor was wound down.
Following today’s judgment several other rate-rigging convictions are expected to be quashed in the UK.
The Serious Fraud Office, which originally filed the charges, has said it will not pursue a retrial.
