By Andy Silvester
The former banker who spent five years inside for ‘rigging’ Libor rates has told City A.M. he feels he owes it to other convicted traders to keep fighting to clear his name.
Tom Hayes, who worked at UBS, was one of a number of traders sentenced for a cumulative total of almost 50 years for their part in a scandal that rocked the financial services world.
However today it was announced that US courts had thrown out charges against Hayes, having already overturned the convictions of two American defendants on similar charges.
Hayes and others were convicted in the UK of ‘rigging’ the London Interbank Offered Rate by submitting either ‘high’ or ‘low’ estimates of the interest rate they were currently charging and being offered. That rate dictated, in part, interest rates offered by banks for mortgage holders and a host of other products.
The US courts ruled previously that as there were no Libor regulations at the time, no crime could have been committed. Prosecutors in the States then petitioned the court to drop the case against Hayes.
In the UK, Lord Justice Davies ruled in 2015 that it was “self-evident” the high or low requests were not permitted.
Yesterday Hayes told City A.M. that he would continue fighting his UK conviction because he “feels he was tried for something that wasn’t a crime.”
He served five and a half years in jail as part of an eleven year sentence.
“I want the recognition that I faced a political trial with a hostile media,” he said.
“It’s not just about me though. There were nine people sent to jail in the UK… I owe it to the others to carry on fighting as much as I owe it to myself.”
Hayes is awaiting a ruling from the UK’s Criminal Cases Review Commission as to whether his conviction will be referred back to the Court of Appeal in the UK.
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