Supreme Court Ruling – Four bankers appeal LIBOR interest rate crime conviction after mortgage strategy
Four other bankers ruled that they would be guilty of convictions after the victory of two Supreme Court businessmen this week and would appeal their convictions.
Jay Merchant, Jonathan Mathew and Philippe Moryoussef, all work at Barclays, while former Deutsche Bank businessman Christian Bittar will appeal their criminal convictions, their law firm Hickman & Rose said.
“After the Supreme Court decided yesterday to cancel the beliefs of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, our four clients are now planning to appeal their beliefs,” Hickman & Rose said in a written statement.
Hayes and Palumbo believe they work on a committee that works on a committee – the bank rate in London provides interest rates – interest rates, which on Wednesday canceled loans and securities from lenders worldwide and securities over 350trn.
Hayes insisted that the LIBOR rate he asked fell within the permissible range, and his behavior was common at the time and was forgiven by the boss.
He also argued that his conviction depends on the definition of Libor and Euribor, which assumes that there is an absolute legal standard for the bank’s commercial interests when setting interest rates.
The initial conviction of Hayes at Southwark Crown Court in 2015 led to the abolition of LIBOR, as regulators moved to Sonia (Sterling Onvirten Index average) – a benchmark set by larger banks to set exchange prices, which in turn is the shape of the shape Mortgage Rate.
Hayes was initially sentenced to 14 years in prison and was sentenced to five and a half years in prison after 11 years in appeal. He was released in 2021.
Former Barclays businessman Carlo Palombo was sentenced to four years in prison for manipulating the Europeans, another benchmark rate, and his conviction was overturned. Palombo is also released in 2021.
All four bankers represented by Hickman & Rose are currently convicted of manipulating Libor or Euribor, another benchmark rate.
Bittar pleaded guilty in London court in 2018, and Moryoussef was convicted of absent after refusing to appear in court and leaving France.
The Office of Serious Fraud sued Hayes and Palumbo, as well as seven other UK bankers, who he said would not seek a retrial.
Between 2015 and 2019, British and U.S. prosecutors conducted a total of nine criminal trials in London and New York and received 19 convictions.
Jonathan Fisher KC, the barrister for Red Lion Chambers, outlines the difficulties of bringing complex financial cases to the criminal court.
Fisher said: “The Supreme Court made it clear that failure in this case stems from judicial errors – in particular, it is actually a factual thing that the jury misled by treating the jury as a legal issue – but that doesn’t completely eliminate the serious fraud chamber.
“The Supreme Court criticized the serious fraud bureau because from the outset the exact nature of the case was not clear.
“This highlights the challenge of prosecuting criminal courts for financial market fraud cases.”
