MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Two British bankers convicted in the US for manipulation of the Libor rate

The Libor scandal blew up in 2012 when it emerged that banks had been lying in the figures on which Libor was set.

Two British bankers have been convicted by a New York jury of manipulating inter-bank lending rates. Anthony Allen and Anthony Conti were charged with conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud and committing wire fraud, by misreporting the London interbank offered rate (Libor) as it related to the US dollar. Both worked for Dutch lender Rabobank.

 The Libor scandal blew up in 2012 when it emerged that banks had been lying in the figures on which Libor was set. The Libor rate is a key figure in setting global borrowing rates.

The US Department of Justice reached a deal with Rabobank in October 2013 for $1bn over its role in manipulating Libor.

This was the first conviction of traders involved in the scandal in the US.

In August, Tom Hayes, a former Tokyo-based trader at UBS and Citigroup was convicted of Libor-manipulation in London.

In a statement, Leslie Caldwell, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, said, “Today's verdicts illustrate the department's successful efforts to hold accountable bank executives responsible for this global fraud scheme.”

Allen and Conti, along with other traders around the world, lied about how much it cost them to borrow from other banks.

During the trial their attorneys argued that what they had done should not be considered fraud because the panel collecting the data knew that many bankers lied about the rate.