Tom Hayes, 35, is the first person to be charged and stand trial over the criminal investigation into bankers manipulating lending rates.
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In the first trial of a defendant accused of Libor rigging, Hayes had faced up to 10 years’ imprisonment for each count of conspiracy over the manipulation of London interbank offered rate (Libor), a crucial benchmark for around $US450 trillion ($620 trillion) of financial contracts and consumer loans, between 2006 and 2010.
The trial extended over nine weeks at the London Southwark Crown Court.
“What this case has shown is the absence of that integrity which ought to characterize banking”, Cooke said.
“The conduct involved here is to be marked out as dishonest and wrong, and a message sent to the world of banking accordingly”.
“It was a huge part of my identity”, he said, and according to his lawyer, Hayes “lived, breathed and slept Libor all because he wanted to do a good job for the bank”. Half the 14 years sentence wis to be spent in custody before any possibility of release on licence.
His defence rested on an argument that his bosses had not only known about what he was doing, but had acquiesced to his behaviour, since it was making profits for them.
His wife subsequently said the sentence was “horrific” as she made her way out of the courtroom. It was a matter between the SFO and Mr Hayes and UBS has no comment.
Mr Hayes then returned to the UK and handed himself into the Serious Fraud Office.
Hayes is the primary to be convicted by a U. Okay. jury of Libor rigging. Judge Cooke on Monday agreed with that assessment, calling Mr. Hayes “the hub of the conspiracy”.
In the United States, two former traders at Dutch bank Rabobank have also pleaded guilty to manipulating Libor.
The Libor rigging case, in which multiple traders manipulated the rate in order to make it more favourable to their banks, was uncovered in 2008. He joined Citigroup in late 2009, but was fired in September 2010 for Libor manipulation.
However, he retracted the confession and changed his plea to not guilty.
His mistake was that, during the 82 hours’ worth of interviews he gave to the SFO, he more or less admitted his guilt. But until now, there has been no individual who was found guilty of such actions.
But for months, that decision haunted Mr. Hayes.
Crucially, he was convicted of eight charges.
The trial featured a lively cast of nicknamed characters: Gollum (a Deutsche Bank AG trader), Pooks (a Rabobank NV trader), Darcy (a “posh” HSBC trader), Pete the Greek (a UBS trader) and several others that the media aren’t allowed to publish under contempt-of-court rules.
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Far from being like the Wild West outlaw, Hayes claimed he was dubbed “Rain Man” by colleagues – a reference to the Tom Cruise film about an autistic man.
