LONDON-Six former brokers with nicknames including “Lord Libor” and “Big Nose” helped convicted bank trader Tom Hayes rig interest-rate benchmarks for financial gain, a London court heard Tuesday on the first day of a criminal trial.
Advertisement
Noel Cryan, 49, of Chislehurst, Kent; Darrell Read, 50, of Wellington, New Zealand; Danny Wilkinson, 48, of Hornchurch, Essex; Colin Goodman, 53, of Epsom, Surrey; James Gilmour, 50 of Benfleet, Essex; and Terry Farr, 44, of Southend on Sea, Essex, are accused of conspiring to defraud by trying to manipulate the Libor rate linked to the Japanese yen.
LIBOR – or the London interbank offered rate – is the daily measure meant to show the rate at which banks will lend to each other and is used to set the price of hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of financial products. They were “rewarded in various ways”, Mr Chawla said.
The prosecution alleges that Read, Goodman and Wilkinson, all former ICAP employees, conspired with at least seven others, including three former ICAP colleagues and four former UBS traders, including Hayes, to rig yen Libor rates between August 2006 and December 2009.
The trial comes more than seven years after US regulators first examined how Libor rates were set, sowing the seeds of a global inquiry that culminated in authorities fining a few of the world’s most powerful banks and brokerages $9 billion, charging 21 men and overhauling how benchmarks such as Libor are policed.
The jury was told Hayes was convicted of conspiracy to defraud earlier this year.
Hayes would figure prominently in the trial but was not in the court, Mr Chawla told the jury.
Mr Farr and Mr Gilmour are charged with conspiring to rig rates with Mr Hayes and others between August 2006 and December 2009.
The men, known by nicknames including “Lord Libor” and “Big Nose”, acted to “corrupt a process that should not have been corrupted”, London’s Southwark Crown Court heard.
They are accused of asking Libor submitters at other banks to change their submissions, following requests from Mr Hayes.
Cryan worked for Tullett Prebon.
Mr Chawla said one way for Hayes to maximise his profits was to recruit a number of people into a “dishonest scheme”.
Mr Farr also faces an additional claim of conspiracy in the same time period.
Advertisement
Lawyers for the defendants will then present their cases around mid-November, in a trial that is scheduled to last up to 14 weeks. All six have pleaded not guilty.
