Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo: Criminal appeal to start for ex-UBS and Barclays traders convicted of rigging
Former bankers Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo who spent years in prison over Libor manipulation are back in court this week as their cases will be heard at the Court of Appeal.
Tom Hayes (44) was a former UBS and Citigroup trader who was sentenced in 2015 to 11 years in prison for conspiring to rig the London interbank offered rate (Libor) for profit.
He was released from prison, on licence, in January 2021 having spent five-and-a-half years, mostly in high security prisons.
Hayes was the first person to be charged and stand trial in the UK over Libor fixing.
He was also charged in the US, but he had that long-running case against him thrown out by a New York judge back in 2022.
While Carlo Palombo (45) former Barclays vice president of Euro Rates was convicted of rigging the Euro interbank offered rate (Eibor). He was sentenced to four years in prison back in 2019 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £725,000.
Both men were investigated and prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) along with others in the Eibor case.
Hayes maintains that he was wrongfully convicted while the barrister that acted for Palombo called the system “flawed”.
There have been calls to review all of the convictions of City traders in this rigging scandal including from Conservative MP David Davis last May after new evidence came to light in BBC journalist Andy Verity book called ‘Rigged’.
The cases of Hayes and Palombo have been referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC). The cases have been referred to the court by the CCRC as there is a real possibility that the convictions are unsafe.
The appeals will be starting Thursday, and will continue into Friday and next Monday at the Royal Courts of Justice in London at court room four.