Tom Hayes found guilty of fixing Libor rate

City trader Tom Hayes has been convicted of rigging Libor rates at Southwark crown court today.

Related topics:  Finance News
Rozi Jones
3rd August 2015
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The former former UBS and Citigroup was found guilty of eight counts of conspiracy to defraud after conspiring to fix the Libor rate between 2006 and 2010.

He has been sentenced to a total of 14 years in prison and is the first UK trader to be convicted over the Libor rate rigging scandal.

The Serious Fraud Office said that Hayes was a ringleader who bribed up to 25 traders across 10 lenders.

While speaking with investigators, Hayes said:

“We’d had no compliance training. We’d had no rules outlined to us, either internally or externally. I knew I was operating in a grey area. I knew that I probably shouldn’t do it but like I said I was participating in an industry-wide practice at UBS that pre-dated my arrival and post-dated my departure."

However lead prosecutor, Mukul Chawla, argued:

"Mr Hayes was the central player in the fraud set out in these eight charges, he was the ringmaster, the very centre telling others around him what to do, what he wanted and, in a number of cases, rewarding them for their dishonest assistance. [He] was the epicentre controlling and dictating what he wanted to happen. Mr Hayes’ desire was to earn and make as much money as he could.”

In April the FCA fined Deutsche Bank a £227 million fine, its largest ever for Libor and Euribor related misconduct.

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