Five Former Barclays Traders Have Libor 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 a significant moment in one of the most heavily prosecuted episodes of the 2008 financial crisis.

Jay Merchant, Jonathan Mathew, Philippe Moryoussef, Alex Pabon and Colin Bermingham were convicted following separate trials for manipulating the interest rates used for loans between banks. Their convictions were formally overturned on Wednesday, though the court said it would publish its full reasoning later in the day.

The decision follows a long-running legal campaign by the traders, who have consistently argued that they were made scapegoats for broader industry practices that were widely accepted at the time. Their appeals were made possible after two other former City traders successfully had their own convictions overturned last year, opening a path for others to challenge the prosecutions.

The case dates back to the years surrounding the global financial crisis, when Libor and Euribor — two benchmark interest rate mechanisms used to set borrowing costs on products ranging from mortgages to car finance deals — became the focus of intense regulatory scrutiny. Prosecutors alleged that traders had conspired to influence these benchmarks to benefit their own positions and boost bank profits.

The scandal erupted publicly in 2012, when it emerged that banks had been misrepresenting their borrowing positions during the rate-setting process at the height of the crisis. The revelations fuelled public anger at a financial sector that had already been blamed for triggering a global recession and had been kept afloat by taxpayer-funded bailouts.

In total, 19 City traders were convicted across nine criminal trials held in London and New York between 2015 and 2019. Each of the five Barclays traders in Wednesday's successful appeal had been found guilty of a single count of conspiracy to defraud.

Merchant, Mathew, Pabon and Bermingham have all served various prison terms, while Moryoussef was sentenced in his absence in 2018 after France refused to extradite him and he never returned to the UK to serve his time.

For those involved, the ruling brings an end to a legal ordeal spanning more than a decade. Jonathan Mathew, 45, said the strain of the process had weighed on him for ten years and described the quashing of his conviction as something far more significant than a bureaucratic correction.

He said the decision represented validation that what had happened to him was an injustice that should never have occurred, adding that it mattered greatly to have the record set straight for the sake of his two children.

Jay Merchant, 55, said he was looking forward to moving on with his life, but made clear that part of that process would involve pursuing accountability for those he holds responsible for the prosecutions.

The appeals were made possible by the earlier successes of Tom Hayes, a former trader at Swiss bank UBS, and Carlo Palombo. Hayes, the first banker to be jailed over the scandal, won a decade-long legal battle when the Supreme Court overturned his conviction in July 2025. Palombo, who was jailed in 2019, also had his conviction cleared.

Both men argued that they had been wrongly prosecuted for what were normal commercial practices at the time, and that the cases against them had been driven by a desire to appease public anger toward the banking industry in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Their victories created the legal foundation for Wednesday's ruling.

Lord Justice Edis indicated that the court's full reasons for overturning the convictions would be provided later on Wednesday, leaving open the precise legal grounds on which the five men succeeded.

The ruling leaves only two traders still carrying 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.

The other remaining case is that of Peter Johnson, a former Barclays trader who was the original whistleblower in the Libor affair. He pleaded guilty after being advised that he had little prospect of winning at trial, and he too hopes to have his conviction overturned.

The progressive unravelling of these prosecutions raises difficult questions about how authorities pursued individuals for conduct that was, at the time, endemic across the financial industry. Defence lawyers have long contended that junior and mid-level traders bore the brunt of a response that ought to have focused on systemic failures and institutional responsibility.

The quashing of the convictions also carries implications for the Serious Fraud Office and other prosecuting authorities, which invested substantial resources in bringing the cases. Each successful appeal further undermines the legal theory on which the original trials rested.

For the men at the centre of Wednesday's ruling, the practical consequences extend beyond the clearing of their names. A criminal record carries lasting effects on employment, travel and reputation, and the reversal restores a status that many of them have spent years trying to recover.

The financial crisis, which began in 2008, sent shockwaves through the global economy and pushed many countries into recession. Banks were widely blamed for the collapse, yet the sector itself was rescued through publicly funded bailouts, a contrast that shaped public opinion and political pressure for years afterwards.

The Libor scandal became one of the defining symbols of that era, and the traders convicted in its wake were presented by prosecutors as emblematic of greed within the banking system. Wednesday's ruling complicates that narrative, suggesting that at least some of those punished were caught up in a response shaped as much by public sentiment as by the strength of the evidence.

With two cases still outstanding, the legal reckoning over Libor is not yet complete. But the direction of travel is now unmistakable: convictions that once seemed secure are being dismantled one by one, and the legacy of one of the financial crisis's most aggressive prosecutorial efforts is being rewritten in the courts.