On Friday (13 November) the Serious Fraud Office issued the first criminal proceedings against 10 individuals accused of manipulating the Euro Interbank Offered Rate, also known as Euribor.
Deutsche Bank employees Christian Bittar, Achim Kraemer, Andreas Hauschild, Joerg Vogt, Ardalan Gharagozlou and Kai-Uwe Kappauf, will be charged with conspiracy to defraud in connection with the SFO’s ongoing investigation into the manipulation of Euribor.
Barclays Bank employees Colin Bermingham, Carlo Palombo, Philippe Moryoussef and Sisse Bohart will face the same charges.
According to the SFO, criminal proceedings will be issued against other individuals in due course.
The defendants will make their first appearance at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 11 January 2016.
It was back on 6 July 2012 that the SFO decided to accept allegations of the manipulation of London Interbank Offered Rate and Euribor for investigation.
The investigation came as the Financial Services Authority hit Barclays with the then biggest-ever fine issued by the regulator, for manipulating the Libor rate in order to appear more financially stable.
Barclays had to pay £59.5m for misconduct relating to breaches of requirements that encompassed a number of issues, involved a significant number of employees and occurred over a number of years.
The watchdog said Barclays’ misconduct could be divided in to three main areas:
• making submissions which formed part of the Libor and Euribor setting process that took into account requests from Barclays’ interest rate derivatives traders;
• seeking to influence the Euribor submissions of other banks contributing to the rate setting process; and
• reducing its Libor submissions during the financial crisis as a result of senior management’s concerns over negative media comment.
This year former UBS and Citibank trader Tom Hayes was the first to be found guilty on 3 August of offences of conspiracy to defraud in the Yen Libor setting process. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Former brokers Terry Farr, James Gilmour, Danny Wilkinson, Darrell Read, Colin Goodman and Noel Cryan, are currently on trial at Southwark Crown Court, charged with conspiracy to defraud in respect of Libor manipulation.
The trial of Jonathan Mathew, Stylianos Contogoulas, Jay Merchant, Ryan Reich and Alex Pabon on charges of conspiracy defraud in respect of manipulating US dollar Libor is scheduled to begin in January 2016 at Southwark Crown Court.
emma.hughes@ft.com
