Tom Hayes Denied Latest Bid to Appeal Libor Conviction
An appeals court on Tuesday denied a request by Tom Hayes, a former trader at Citigroup and UBS, to ask Britain’s highest court to review his conviction in August for conspiring to manipulate a global benchmark interest rate known as Libor.
Mr. Hayes, who is imprisoned and serving his sentence, was the first person to go to trial in Britain and to be convicted on criminal charges related to the manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.
In December, the Court of Appeal declined to overturn Mr. Hayes’s conviction, but reduced his sentence to 11 years in prison from an original term of 14 years.
On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal refused his request to have the Supreme Court, Britain’s highest court, review the case, a spokesman for the Serious Fraud Office, which brought the criminal case, said on Tuesday.
A lawyer for Mr. Hayes did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
The decision makes it much more difficult for Mr. Hayes to challenge his conviction, as criminal cases must be certified by a lower court that there is a point of law of general public importance to be argued on appeal before the Supreme Court.
He is expected to ask the Criminal Case Review Commission, which examines miscarriages of justice, to examine his case. The independent body can refer criminal cases back to the appellate court for review.
The appeals court decision came more than a month after a jury in Londonacquitted six former brokers of charges that they helped Mr. Hayes manipulate Libor.
A half-decade-long investigation into the manipulation of Libor has led to billions of dollars in fines and has damaged the reputations of some of the world’s biggest banks, including Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS.
A third trial in London of others accused of manipulating Libor is expected to begin this year.
The first trial in the United States of people accused of rigging Libor ended in the conviction in November of two former London-based traders.
The Serious Fraud Office had accused Mr. Hayes of being a ringleader among more than a dozen traders in what authorities said was a brazen scheme to manipulate Libor, which helps determine the borrowing costs for trillions of dollars in loans. He was accused of misconduct engaged in from 2006 to 2010.
Mr. Hayes’s lawyers had argued that he was open about his conduct and did not believe at the time that he was acting dishonestly.
To set Libor and other rates, banks submit the rates at which they would be prepared to lend money to one another, on an unsecured basis, in various currencies and at varying maturities.
The evidence against Mr. Hayes included 82 hours of voluntary testimony that prosecutors said he provided to the Serious Fraud Office over five months. The authorities said he admitted to rigging rates and provided testimony against many former friends and colleagues, including his half brother.
Mr. Hayes testified during the trial that he decided to cooperate with British authorities because he feared being extradited to the United States, where he is also facing criminal charges, and wanted to remain close to his wife and child.
After providing the voluntary testimony to British authorities, Mr. Hayes stopped cooperating with prosecutors in 2013 and chose to plead not guilty to the charges in Britain.
Source: NY Times
