R v Hayes (Appellant)

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Case summary

Case ID

UKSC/2024/0087

Parties

Appellant(s)

Tom Alexander Hayes

Respondent(s)

Serious Fraud Office

Issue

(1) Is a LIBOR or EURIBOR submission automatically dishonest if it is influenced by a trading advantage? (2) Must a LIBOR or EURIBOR submission be of the single cheapest rate at which the panel or prime bank could borrow at the time of the submissions or can it be a rate selected from within a range of potential borrowing rates?

Facts

The appellants are both former traders at major banks. On 3 August 2015, Mr Hayes was convicted of conspiracy to defraud for manipulating LIBOR rates. In 2019, Mr Palombo was similarly convicted of having conspired to manipulate EURIBOR rates. The appellants contend that those convictions depend upon the definition of LIBOR and EURIBOR that was adopted during their trials (ie, that there was an absolute legal prohibition on a bank’s commercial interests being taken into account when it was submitting a LIBOR or EURIBOR rate). The appellants unsuccessfully appealed against their convictions in December 2015 and 2020 respectively. In January 2022, the United States Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit reversed the conviction of two former traders for fraud in the manipulation of LIBOR rates. The appellants contend that, in doing so, the US court adopted a different definition of LIBOR to that used by the English courts in the appellants’ convictions (ie, that it was permissible for a bank to take into account its trading advantage when making a LIBOR submission). Following the judgment of the US Court of Appeal, the Criminal Case Review Commission referred Mr Hayes’ and Mr Palombo’s convictions to the Court of Appeal on 6 July and 12 October 2023 respectively. The Court of Appeal dismissed this further appeal against the appellants’ convictions. The appellants now appeal to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.