Former Barclays banker found guilty of Euribor rigging

A former Barclays banker has been found guilty of manipulating the Euribor interest rate benchmark while another was acquitted of the same offence.

Carlo Palombo was today found guilty by a jury of nine men and three women at Southwark Crown Court after five days of deliberations and a two-month trial.

Sisse Bohart, also a former employee of Barclays, was acquitted.

The jury has yet to reach a verdict on the third defendant, Colin Bermingham.

The three former Barclays employees were charged by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) with conspiracy to defraud in 2015.

The SFO accused them of “conspiring” with other bankers to submit “false and misleading” rates for Euribor – a benchmark banks rely on to lend each other money – to benefit their trading positions and prejudice the economic interests of others.

All three denied the charges and said they believed there was a range of rates they were allowed to choose from and that taking the bank’s commercial interests into account was common practice in the industry.

Palombo is expected to be sentenced later in the week. His lawyer declined to comment.

The latest verdicts mean eight bankers have been convicted of benchmark rate rigging in Britain by the SFO. Ten have been acquitted.

Bankers and brokers have been fined billions over rate-rigging allegations in recent years.