Advertisement
UK markets close in 4 hours 18 minutes
  • FTSE 100

    7,952.37
    +20.39 (+0.26%)
     
  • FTSE 250

    19,862.70
    +52.04 (+0.26%)
     
  • AIM

    743.48
    +1.37 (+0.18%)
     
  • GBP/EUR

    1.1696
    +0.0027 (+0.23%)
     
  • GBP/USD

    1.2621
    -0.0018 (-0.14%)
     
  • Bitcoin GBP

    55,825.34
    +142.62 (+0.26%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • S&P 500

    5,248.49
    +44.91 (+0.86%)
     
  • DOW

    39,760.08
    +477.75 (+1.22%)
     
  • CRUDE OIL

    82.44
    +1.09 (+1.34%)
     
  • GOLD FUTURES

    2,233.50
    +20.80 (+0.94%)
     
  • NIKKEI 225

    40,168.07
    -594.66 (-1.46%)
     
  • HANG SENG

    16,541.42
    +148.58 (+0.91%)
     
  • DAX

    18,498.04
    +20.95 (+0.11%)
     
  • CAC 40

    8,222.05
    +17.24 (+0.21%)
     

Jailed Libor trader denied fair trial, his lawyer tells appeals court

By Kirstin Ridley

LONDON, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The judge who sentenced Tom Hayes to 14 years in jail for conspiracy to rig Libor interest rates blocked the defence from presenting key evidence about a banking industry that routinely flouted rules, his lawyer told an appeals court on Tuesday.

On the first day of a two-day appeal against the former derivative trader's conviction and sentence, lawyer Neil Hawes told senior judges at London's Court of Appeal that the jury should have been free to consider if Hayes acted dishonestly against the backdrop of industry practice at the time.

Hawes said Judge Jeremy Cooke had prevented him during his closing speech in the Hayes trial from referring the jury to the culture of the industry in 2006-2010, when he said banks routinely tried to influence benchmark interest rates for commercial reasons.

ADVERTISEMENT

"The jury were entitled to take into consideration surrounding circumstances," Hawes told the three senior judges.

Under questioning from Lord Chief Justice John Thomas, the head of the judiciary in England and Wales, as well as Brian Leveson and Elizabeth Gloster, Hawes denied his argument hinged on bankers having their own standards of honesty.

"In judging standards of reasonable and honest people, you have to have regard to the conduct of the market (at the time)," he said.

Hayes, a 36-year-old former UBS (NYSEArca: FBGX - news) and Citigroup (Swiss: C.SW - news) trader, was in August found guilty of eight charges of conspiracy to defraud for rigging Libor, the London interbank offered rate, that underpins around $450 trillion of financial contracts and consumer loans worldwide.

Hayes, whose legal team is arguing Cooke made legal errors in the way he handled the trial and that the sentence was wrong in principle and/or excessive, waived his right to attend the hearing.

The former Tokyo-based yen derivatives trader denied dishonesty during his trial, arguing he had been open about practices which he said were endorsed by senior staff and common in the industry at the time.

Cast (LSE: 0GK0.L - news) as the ringleader in one of the rate-rigging scams that has cost banks billions in regulatory fines, Hayes was found guilty of conspiring to rig Libor - designed to reflect the cost of borrowing between banks - for profit.

Sentencing him on Aug. 3, Cooke said the conduct in the case "must be marked out as dishonest and wrong and a message sent to the world of banking accordingly". (Editing by Mark Potter)