Court overturns ex-Citi trader Hayes’ criminal conviction for interest rate rigging

Tom Hayes, the first trader ever jailed for interest rate rigging, had his conviction overturned by Britain’s top court Wednesday after a years-long fight to clear his name.

Tom Hayes, the first trader ever jailed for interest rate rigging, had his conviction overturned by Britain’s top court Wednesday after a years-long fight to clear his name. The UK Supreme Court unanimously allowed Hayes’ appeal, overturning his 2015 conviction of eight counts of conspiracy to defraud by manipulating Libor, a now-defunct benchmark interest rate. The court said there had been “ample evidence” for a jury to reasonably conclude Hayes had conspired with others to manipulate Libor submissions – much of it coming from Hayes’ own interviews with Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, which brought the charges against him. But the jury 10 years ago was misdirected by the judge, the court said, and that “undermined the fairness of the trial.” Supreme Court judge George Leggatt said Hayes was entitled to present his defense against allegations that he conspired to submit false information, including his insistence that he acted honestly, and to have those claims fairly considered by the jury. “He was deprived of that opportunity by directions which were legally inaccurate and unfair,” the court said, adding that his convictions were “therefore unsafe and cannot stand.”