LONDON: Tom Hayes, the first trader jailed for interest rate rigging, has had his conviction overturned by Britain’s top court after a lengthy legal battle.
The UK Supreme Court unanimously allowed Hayes’ appeal, quashing his 2015 conviction on eight counts of conspiracy to defraud by manipulating the now-defunct Libor benchmark.
Hayes, a former Citigroup and UBS trader, initially received a 14-year sentence, later reduced to 11 years. He served five and a half years before being released in 2021. Alongside him, Carlo Palombo, a former Barclays trader convicted in 2019 for skewing Euribor, also had his conviction overturned.
The court ruled that their convictions relied on a flawed legal interpretation of Libor and Euribor, which incorrectly assumed banks could not consider commercial interests when submitting rate estimates.
The Libor scandal, which led to global regulatory reforms, involved banks submitting false estimates to influence borrowing costs. The benchmark was phased out in 2023.
Hayes’ victory follows a similar 2022 U.S. ruling that overturned convictions of two former Deutsche Bank traders. – Reuters
