CCRC says legal errors identified by the Supreme Court undermine the safety of five convictions
The Criminal Cases Review Commission has referred the convictions of five former city traders back to the courts following a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court on interest rate manipulation cases.
The referrals relate to convictions connected with the setting of exchange rates and follow the Supreme Court’s decision last summer to quash the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo in cases involving LIBOR and EURIBOR. The Supreme Court handed down its judgment in July, finding that the convictions could not stand.
The CCRC confirmed it received applications from the five traders in August 2025, shortly after the Supreme Court ruling. After reviewing those applications, the Commission concluded that the same legal errors identified by the Supreme Court applied to all five cases.
LIBOR, the London Interbank Offered Rate, is the average interest rate at which leading banks estimate they can borrow from one another. EURIBOR is the equivalent benchmark used by banks in the eurozone. Both rates play a significant role in global financial markets.
Alex Pabon, Jay Vijay Merchant and Jonathan Mathew were convicted in 2016 at Southwark Crown Court of conspiracy to defraud. They received prison sentences ranging from two to six and a half years. Mr Pabon and Mr Merchant were LIBOR traders based in New York, while Mr Mathew was a LIBOR submitter and junior trader working in London.
Philippe Moryoussef, a senior trader based in London, was convicted in 2018 at Southwark Crown Court of conspiracy to defraud and sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment. Colin Bermingham, who was responsible for making Barclays’ daily EURIBOR submissions, was convicted in 2019 and sentenced to five years in prison. Mr Bermingham was convicted alongside Carlo Palombo.
In their applications, Mr Pabon, Mr Merchant and Mr Mathew argued that the trial judge adopted legal directions that have since been found to be wrong. They submitted that these directions undermined the safety of their convictions and deprived them of the opportunity to have their defence cases properly considered by the jury.
Mr Moryoussef and Mr Bermingham similarly argued that their trials involved the same misdirections and errors of law identified by the Supreme Court in Mr Palombo’s case, and that there was no proper basis on which their convictions could be distinguished.
After analysing all five applications and reviewing the trial directions in light of the Supreme Court judgment, the CCRC concluded that there was no distinguishing factor between these cases and those of Mr Hayes and Mr Palombo. It determined that jury misdirection and legal errors had undermined the safety of all five convictions.
The cases of Mr Hayes and Mr Palombo had previously been referred by the CCRC to the Court of Appeal in July 2023. Although the Court of Appeal upheld their convictions in March 2024, the Supreme Court later overturned that decision.
It will now be for the appeal courts to decide whether the five referred convictions are unsafe.