Fraud investigators have admitted that five high-profile rate-rigging convictions may be unsafe – after two jailed bankers were cleared last month.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is under pressure after the Supreme Court overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, who were jailed for manipulating benchmark interest rates.
Now the SFO says that ruling could also affect five other men who were locked up.
Jonathan Mathew, Jay Merchant, Alex Pabon, Philippe Moryoussef and Colin Bermingham were all convicted in the wake of the Libor and Euribor scandals that rocked the financial world.
But the Supreme Court’s judgment last month has cast doubt on all the convictions.
The SFO said it is reviewing the cases in light of the ruling – a move that could result in fresh appeals.
Acquitted: Carlo Palombo, left, and Tom Hayes celebrate after the Supreme Court ruling
The conviction of sixth jailed trader Peter Johnson – who pleaded guilty to similar allegations – was safe, the SFO said.
The statement did not mention the case of a seventh man, Christian Bittar, who also received a prison sentence for rate rigging.
The cases related to benchmark lending rates between banks known as Libor and Euribor. It was claimed that traders dishonestly manipulated the rates in order to benefit their trading positions.
The scandal – which broke in 2012 – caused anger at a time when bankers were in the spotlight for their role in the financial crisis.
Hayes, who in 2015 became the first person to be convicted by a jury for rate rigging, yesterday criticised the SFO for taking ten years to acknowledge ‘continued failures’ in the trials.
‘As a result many people spent years in prison,’ he said.
Hayes described the fate of Johnson – who was the ‘whistle-blower’ in the rate-rigging scandal – as a ‘travesty’.
The Supreme Court ruled last month that the trial judge in Hayes’s case had misdirected the jury in a way that ‘undermined the fairness of the trial’ – with Palombo’s conviction similarly affected.
An SFO spokesman yesterday said it had a duty ‘to inform past defendants about any development that could affect their conviction’.
The spokesman said the basis of the judgment in the Hayes and Palombo appeals may also apply in the cases of Mathew, Merchant, Pabon, Moryoussef and Bermingham.
‘Therefore, their convictions may be considered unsafe,’ the spokesman said.
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