Tom Hayes’ lawyer accuses Court of Appeal judge of conflict of interest
The lawyer of former Libor trader Tom Hayes has written to the Court of Appeal over allegations that one of the judges for his Appeal case had a potential conflict of interest.
Lawyer Karen Todner has written to the court highlighting Mr Justice Bryan’s position on the appeal panel after she discovered he sat one of the previous EURIBOR interlocutory appeals for Christian Bittar.
Todner stated in her letter that the third judge in Hayes’ appeal case was set to be Mr Justice Picken. However, shortly before the hearing began in March, Mr Justice Bryan replaced him.
Just last week, the Court of Appeal upheld the convictions of former UBS and Citigroup trader Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, a former trader at Barclays, after they spent years in prison for rate-rigging.
Senior politicians including Conservative MP and former Brexit secretary David Davis alongside Labour MP and former shadow Chancellor John McDonnell called for the men’s cases to be heard at the Supreme Court.
The men have seven days left to submit applications for the point of law of general public importance to be certified and for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.
In the meantime, Todner’s concern is with Mr Justice Bryan from the Appeal case. She noted in her letter that she was unaware of his prior involvement in any IBOR case. Her concern is with one of the elements of their arguments that the court should prefer the approach taken in the US case of Connolly and Black.
She wrote that “given that that was the basis of the referral, I am very concerned that one of the judges considering this appeal had in fact been party to one the previous decisions, the correctness of which was under challenge.”
She asked the Court why the fact of Mr Justice Bryan’s prior involvement in IBOR was not drawn to the attention of the parties.
She also wrote a letter to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), stating out Mr Justice Bryan’s prior involvement in Christian Bittar case. She suggested in her letter that “clearly the SFO and [James] Waddington KC must have been aware of Mr Justice Bryan’s prior involvement in the IBOR cases. Can I ask if this was drawn to the attention of the Court and if not, why not?”.
Hayes wrote on X (formerly Twitter) this morning that “given the conflicted judge who heard this case we should really have a completely fresh appeal. Failing that the Court of Appeal,for the first time of five,should certify this case for the Supreme Court.”
The Judicial press office declined to comment on the news as they said there may be future hearings or appeals.
The SFO were contacted for comment.