LONDON: Five former Barclays traders, jailed in Britain for plotting to rig global benchmark interest rates, won an appeal to clear their names on Wednesday, further unraveling some of the UK Serious Fraud Office’s most high-profile prosecutions.
London’s Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of Philippe Moryoussef, from France, Calcutta-born Jay Merchant, Britons Colin Bermingham and Jonathan Mathew and Alex Pabon, an American. Judges will lay out their reasons later on Wednesday.
The traders were cast by prosecutors as a symbol of banker greed at a time of taxpayer fury at eye-watering bank bailouts following the 2007-2009 credit crisis, which sent stock markets plunging and pitched economies into recession.
But the men applied to clear their names after the Supreme Court last year overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes — a former star UBS and Citigroup trader — and ex-Barclays peer Carlo Palombo for rigging now-defunct interbank interest rate Libor and its euro equivalent, Euribor.
The Supreme Court ruled that the trial judge had misdirected the jury and that legal errors undermined the fairness of the trials, laying the groundwork for Wednesday’s Court of Appeal decision.
“It’s hard to take in,” said a tearful Bermingham, 70, outside the courtroom. “You don’t believe it until you hear it.”
The SFO, which did not contest the appeals by the Barclays traders, reiterated in a statement that the Supreme Court had found “ample evidence” on which a properly directed jury could have convicted Hayes and Palombo.
But it added: “After carefully considering this judgment and the full circumstances, we do not oppose the appeals of five individuals convicted by juries in relation to Libor and Euribor.”
A further attempted appeal by Christian Bittar, a French former star Deutsche Bank trader sentenced to jail in 2018, is expected to be heard on Friday.
Bittar, once dubbed one of the world’s most skilled traders, is the only case that is being contested by the SFO following his guilty plea more than eight years ago.
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