Ex-UBS Trader Hayes Wins Chance to Appeal Libor Conviction

(Bloomberg) -- Tom Hayes, the former UBS Group AG and Citigroup Inc. trader who became the face of the Libor scandal, has won a shot at overturning his UK criminal conviction.

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The Criminal Cases Review Commission, which probes suspected miscarriages of justice, said it had referred his case to the Court of Appeal after a lengthy review, according to a statement Thursday.

Hayes was convicted in 2015 following a two-month London trial where he was found guilty of working with traders and brokers to game Libor to help his own trading positions. He had been a star performer at UBS in Tokyo from 2006 until 2009, when he joined Citigroup. He was dismissed by the American bank less than a year later as the Libor scandal began to widen.

Following the decision, lawyers representing Carlo Palombo and other traders who were hit with Libor and Euribor convictions, were quick to say they would also seek a review.

Hayes had previously lost a bid to have his convictions reconsidered in 2021. But the commission revisited the case after Hayes cited a New York judge’s decision to dismiss a US criminal indictment against him.

Read More: Ex-UBS Trader Hayes Has US Libor-Fixing Indictment Dismissed

“The CCRC has concluded that there is a real possibility that the Court of Appeal will prefer the legal approach to the definition and operation of the Libor rules taken by the US court and overturn Mr. Hayes’ conviction,” said Helen Pitcher, the commission’s chairman.

The rigging of Libor and another rate, Euribor, by traders seeking to bolster their positions were among the most high-profile crimes prosecuted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. By 2017, a dozen banks had paid penalties approaching $10 billion for rigging the benchmarks, which are tied to trillions of dollars worth of loans and derivatives.

“It is now time for all those convicted of Libor rigging to get justice,” Hayes said in a statement. “Although we have all served our custodial sentence the scars of our experiences remain today and continue to plague us.”

Hayes served around half of his 11-year jail sentence, the most high-profile conviction in a crackdown on the rigging of the London interbank offered rate. He has consistently pushed for the verdict to be quashed, arguing he was made a scapegoat.

“The UK is now the only country in the world that maintains that an otherwise accurate and compliant submission of Libor could be turned into a false submission simply because commercial interests had been considered in reaching the final figure,” said Karen Todner, Hayes’s lawyer.

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office led the seven-year rate-rigging investigation, which was closed in 2019 after securing three guilty verdicts and a guilty plea against bankers at Barclays Plc. Hayes’s appeal will cause a headache for the new incoming director of the agency Nick Ephgrave.

“All our prosecutions are based on evidence and the applicable law. We stand ready to support the Court of Appeal as it considers this referral,” an SFO spokesperson said.

(Updates with SFO comment in the final paragraph.)

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