British Libor traders convicted in New York

A New York jury on Thursday convicted two ex-Rabobank Groep traders of rigging a key financial benchmark in the first such USA trial since the government pledged in September to hold bankers accountable for wrongdoing. The US Department of Justice came to an arrangement with Rabobank in October 2013 for $1bn (£657m) over its part in controlling Libor.

The guilty verdicts demonstrate the U.S. Justice Department’s “ongoing efforts to hold individuals who use their corporate positions to commit fraud personally responsible for their actions”, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Leslie Caldwell said in an emailed statement.

Allen, Rabobank’s former head of global liquidity and finance, slumped over a table in court as a Manhattan jury foreman read the verdict.

Allen’s lawyer Michael Schachter said his client planned to appeal.

The 46-year-old, from Essex, said he and his co-defendant Anthony Allen, 44, will be appealing the decision. “Tony Allen looks forward to pursuing all available options. He is disappointed with the verdict”, he said in New York after the verdict. The Libor embarrassment exploded in 2012 when it developed that banks had been lying in the figures on which Libor was set. Hundreds of trillions of dollars in financial products are priced based on Libor, globally.

This was the first conviction of traders involved in the scandal in the US. It has also led to about $9 billion in regulatory settlements with financial institutions. Three other former Rabobank traders – Lee Stewart, Paul Robson, and Takayuki Yagami – had pleaded guilty to conspiracy. The three Rabobank traders who pleaded guilty testified last month against their former colleagues during the trial. Another juror, who gave his name as Nick, said he had initially voted to acquit but was swayed by Mr. Allen’s performance evaluation with his bosses in which Mr. Allen said he had made money for the bank by managing traders and should be compensated accordingly.

The jury of six men and six women included an architect, a nurse practitioner, and a T-Mobile sales representative, and delivered its verdict on the second full-day of deliberations in the fourth week of trial.

He said they would be foolish to flee, making them “pariahs for life”.

“If you have a scheme, the only way the scheme can work is that it can’t be too obvious”, he told reporters outside of court.

Their convictions are expected to be challenged on the grounds that a few testimony given by the two men should be thrown out.

Robertson Park, a former federal prosecutor who worked on the Libor investigation, predicted more criminal cases tied to possible collusion over rates in other markets.