Review: Tom Hayes was convicted in 2015 of manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate
The conviction of Tom Hayes, the first trader to be jailed for fixing the Libor rate, was ‘extremely unfair’ and should be quashed, the Court of Appeal has heard.
Hayes, a former Citigroup and UBS trader, was convicted in 2015 of manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), which tracks what banks pay to borrow money from each other.
He was among 38 traders prosecuted for manipulating the Libor and Euribor benchmarks.
His appeal is being heard together with ex-Barclays trader Carlo Palombo, who was sentenced to four years for manipulating Euribor.
Hayes served half of his 11-year sentence and won a review last year.
His barrister Adrian Darbishire KC argued that the conviction was ‘unsafe’ and that instructions to the jury about Libor were ‘not only legally incorrect’ but also ‘extremely unfair’.
The Libor scandal caused banks to pay high fines. Traders like Hayes claim they were scapegoated.