London jury acquits six brokers of Libor fraud

Five brokers accused of helping rig the Libor interest rate have been found not guilty by a jury at Southwark crown court. The judge directed the jurors that they could now return a verdict on which the majority were agreed. The jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on ICAP’s Darrell Read, 50, and were told to continue to discuss the remaining charge.

“Colin Goodman (Lord Libor) is very grateful to the jury for throwing out this allegation in one day despite the fact that the trial lasted three and a half months”, the statement said.

They were accused of conspiring to manipulate Libor, a key interbank lending rate that helps determine borrowing costs for trillions of dollars in loans across the world.

In some of the messages sent using the Bloomberg Chat (BC) service in 2006, Hayes offered to pay for curries if they helped him with multi-million pound Yen currency trades by manipulating the Libor rate.

The brokers were brought to trial as a result of an SFO investigation, which alleged that they had conspired with Hayes to skew Libor. Goodman’s daily analysis was so influential in setting the final rate he earned the nickname “Lord Libor'”.

“The case also further highlights that yet again, most of the individuals prosecuted in the Libor cases are relatively junior within the different organisations, with more senior people not being held to account”.

Read, Wilkinson and Goodman worked for ICAP while Gilmour and Farr worked for RP Martin.

He said: “Nobody could sensibly suggest that these charges should not have been brought and considered by a jury”.

Despite the swift verdicts, SFO head David Green defended the agency’s decision to bring the prosecutions.

He was convicted of conspiracy to defraud in August and jailed for 14 years, a sentence later reduced to 11 years after an appeal.