Traders have guilty verdicts for rate-rigging overturned

Former financial market traders Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, who were found guilty of benchmark interest rate rigging, have had their convictions quashed at the Supreme Court.

- NINA MASSEY & DANNY HALPIN

Mr Hayes, a former Citigroup and UBS trader, was found guilty of multiple counts of conspiracy to defraud over manipulating the London interbank offered rate (Libor) between 2006 and 2010.

Mr Palombo, the ex-vice-president of Euro rates at Barclays, was found guilty of conspiring with others to submit false or misleading Euro interbank offered rate (Euribor) submissions between 2005 and 2009.

After the Court of Appeal dismissed appeals from both men in March 2024, they took their cases to the Supreme Court. Yesterday, the panel of five justices found there was “ample evidence” for a jury to convict the two men had it been properly directed - but they had not.

In an 82-page judgment, with which Supreme Court president Robert Reed, Patrick Hodge and David Lloyd-Jones and Ingrid Simler agreed, George Leggatt said: “That misdirection undermined the fairness of the trial.”

The jury direction errors made both convictions unsafe, Lord Leggatt said.