Five Former Barclays Traders Have Rate-Rigging Convictions Overturned by Court of Appeal

Five former Barclays traders who were jailed for their roles in the Libor rate-rigging scandal have had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal, in a ruling that marks the latest chapter in a long-running legal saga stemming from the 2008 financial crisis.

Jay Merchant, Jonathan Mathew, Philippe Moryoussef, Alex Pabon and Colin Bermingham were convicted following separate trials for conspiring to manipulate the interest rates used for lending between banks. On Wednesday, the Court of Appeal overturned those convictions, with Lord Justice Edis stating that the full reasoning behind the decision would be provided later in the day.

The ruling follows a similar outcome last year, when two other former City traders successfully had their convictions overturned. That decision opened the door for further appeals, setting the stage for Wednesday's outcome. The five traders had each originally been convicted of a single count of conspiracy to defraud, based on allegations that they attempted to influence key financial benchmark rates.

The prosecutions centred on the manipulation of two critical interest rate mechanisms: Libor and Euribor, which at the time were used to determine borrowing costs on a wide range of financial products, including mortgages and car financing deals. The rates affected millions of consumers and businesses, making their integrity a matter of significant public interest.

Merchant, Mathew, Pabon and Bermingham all served various jail terms following their convictions. Moryoussef, however, was sentenced in his absence in 2018 after France refused to extradite him, and he never returned to the UK to serve his sentence.

Jonathan Mathew, 45, spoke of the personal toll the case had taken on him over the past decade. He said the strain of what he had endured had been a burden for ten years, and that having his conviction quashed was not simply about correcting the record but about gaining validation that an injustice had occurred. He added that having two children made the correction of his record particularly meaningful for their sake.

Jay Merchant, 55, said he looked forward to moving on with his life, but indicated that part of that process would involve ensuring those responsible for what happened were held fully accountable. His remarks suggest that the fallout from the prosecutions may continue to reverberate, with questions potentially being raised about the conduct of the investigations and prosecutions themselves.

The financial crisis of 2008 sent shockwaves through the global economy, triggering recessions in many countries and prompting widespread public anger directed at the banking sector. Banks were widely perceived as having caused the crisis, yet many were protected by taxpayer-funded bailouts. The Libor scandal erupted in 2012, when it emerged that banks had been misrepresenting their positions during the process of setting lending rates at the height of the crisis, thereby boosting profits and concealing financial difficulties.

Between 2015 and 2019, some 19 City traders were convicted across nine criminal trials held in London and New York, reflecting a coordinated transatlantic effort to hold individuals accountable for benchmark rate manipulation. The prosecutions were portrayed by authorities as a response to public demands for accountability following the financial crisis.

However, the legal landscape shifted significantly when Tom Hayes, a former trader at Swiss bank UBS and the first banker to be jailed over Libor rigging, won a decade-long legal battle to have his conviction overturned at the Supreme Court in July 2025. His victory, alongside that of fellow trader Carlo Palombo, who had been jailed in 2019, created a pathway for others to challenge their convictions.

Hayes and Palombo argued that they had been wrongly prosecuted for conduct that amounted to normal commercial practices, and that the prosecutions were driven by a desire to appease public anger towards banks over the financial crisis. Their successful appeals undermined the legal foundations upon which numerous other convictions had been built.

With Wednesday's ruling, only two traders still have convictions related to interest rate rigging. Christian Bittar, a former Deutsche Bank trader who was jailed in 2018 after pleading guilty and served two years in prison, is scheduled to challenge his conviction on 9 October. Peter Johnson, a former Barclays trader who was the original whistleblower calling attention to the Libor scandal, pleaded guilty on advice that he had little chance of winning at trial and also hopes to appeal.

The quashing of the five convictions raises broader questions about the nature of the prosecutions brought in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Defence lawyers and supporters of the traders have long contended that individuals were made scapegoats for systemic failures within the banking industry, and that the conduct for which they were prosecuted was not clearly criminal at the time.

The case also highlights the challenges of pursuing complex financial crime through the criminal justice system, particularly when the conduct in question occurred within a regulatory environment that was subsequently overhauled. The Libor and Euribor benchmarks have since been replaced or reformed, in part due to the revelations that emerged from the scandal.

The Serious Fraud Office, which brought several of the prosecutions, has faced criticism over its handling of the cases. The reversal of multiple convictions may intensify scrutiny of the agency's investigative and prosecutorial decisions, as well as the legal strategies employed in pursuing traders for benchmark manipulation.

For the five men at the centre of Wednesday's ruling, the decision represents the end of a lengthy and costly legal battle. Their cases had become emblematic of the post-crisis pursuit of individual accountability, and the reversal of their convictions may be seen as a significant moment in the reassessment of that era's prosecutions.

As the legal process continues for Bittar and Johnson, the broader implications of Wednesday's ruling are likely to be felt across the financial and legal sectors. The outcome underscores the difficulty of securing convictions in cases involving complex financial instruments and the shifting standards by which such conduct is judged. The full reasons for the Court of Appeal's decision, expected later on Wednesday, may shed further light on the legal basis for overturning the convictions.