Eleven former Deutsche Bank, Barclays and Societe Generale employees are due on Monday to become the first people charged formally with conspiracy to rig Euribor, an international benchmark used to set interest rates on a wide range of financial products, including mortgages.
In the latest chapter of a global rate fixing inquiry kickstarted by US regulators in 2008, 10 men and one woman are due to appear at Westminster magistrates’ court in London to be charged with plotting to manipulate Euribor, the euro interbank offered rate.
Global investigations have so far culminated in banks and brokerages paying about $9bn (£6.18bn) in regulatory settlements and more than 30 individuals being charged.
The former middle managers, traders and Euribor rate submitters appearing in court on Monday span six nationalities and are resident in countries ranging from the United States to Denmark and Singapore.
Frenchman Christian Bittar, a Singapore-based star trader who was once one of Deutsche Bank’s most profitable money markets managers, will be joined in court by former German colleagues Achim Kraemer, Andreas Hauschild, Ardalan Gharagozlou, Joerg Vogt and Kai-Uwe Kappauf.
Also in the dock are four former Barclays employees: Frenchman Philippe Moryoussef, Briton Colin Bermingham, Dane Sisse Bohart and British and Italian dual national Carlo Palombo. The lineup is completed by French former Societe Generale trader Stephane Esper.
Lawyers for Bittar and Hauschild have said that their clients would contest the allegations vigorously. Lawyers for Vogt and Palombo have declined to comment and others did not respond to requests for comment.
Designed to reflect the cost at which banks can borrow from each other in different currencies over varying time frames, rates such as Euribor and the London interbank offered rate (Libor) are benchmarks for about $450tn of financial products.
Monday’s proceedings represent the fourth rate-rigging prosecution launched by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office since it joined the global inquiry belatedly in 2012.
US and British prosecutors have each concluded one jury trial to date, with one trial continuing in London and another scheduled to begin in London next month.
The cases are coming to court more than three years after Barclays became the first bank to reach a global settlement with authorities in 2012, admitting that its traders tried to rig Libor and Euribor from 2005 through 2009. It was fined $450m.
Since then, 10 other major financial institutions have been fined in Europe and the United States for their role in the saga, including UBS, Lloyds, JPMorgan, Citigroup and Icap.
Deutsche Bank was fined a record $2.5bn last April. As part of that deal its London-based subsidiary pleaded guilty to criminal wire fraud and the parent group entered a deferred prosecution agreement to suspend criminal charges.
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