Supreme Court overturns LIBOR convictions: Five more cases may be unsafe
The Supreme Court has quashed the convictions of former bankers Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo for conspiracy to defraud in relation to manipulating key benchmark interest rates - LIBOR and EURIBOR.
The SFO's investigation, which began 13 years ago, examined the manipulation of rates affecting hundreds of trillions of dollars in financial products worldwide, including pensions, mortgages and savings. The investigation resulted in nine convictions of senior bankers.
The convictions were referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission following a US court quashing similar LIBOR-related convictions. After the Court of Appeal dismissed their applications, both were granted permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court found that trial judges gave "legally inaccurate and unfair" directions to juries by wrongly instructing them that if any consideration had been given to whether the submitted rate would advantage the trader, then, as a matter of law, it could not be a genuine assessment. The Court held this was a question of fact for juries to decide, rather than a matter of law.
The SFO has now announced that the convictions of five other former Barclays bankers (Mathew, Merchant, Pabon, Moryoussef and Bermingham) may also be unsafe, as similar flawed jury directions were given at their trials.
Despite acknowledging "ample evidence" existed for conviction, the SFO will not seek retrials, citing that defendants have already served prison sentences. The SFO consider the convictions of Peter Johnson and Christian Bittar, who pleaded guilty, remain safe.