Ex-Deutsche Bank trader jailed for rigging rates has conviction overturned

Another former banker sentenced in one of the biggest scandals of the financial crisis has had his conviction overturned following a long-running legal battle.

The Court of Appeal has quashed the conviction of Christian Bittar, a former Deutsche Bank trader who went to prison in 2018 for "manipulating" the benchmark interest rate, Euribor.

It comes after the same UK court overturned five convictions of ex-Barclays bankers in the rate rigging trials earlier this week.

Bittar, who watched proceedings via video link from Switzerland because he was not granted a visa to attend court, told the BBC: "I have waited a very, very long time for this day."

The financial crisis began in 2008, sending huge economic shockwaves across the world and triggering recessions in many countries.

There was a public backlash against bankers, held by many to be responsible for the crisis, while the financial sector was protected by taxpayer-funded bailouts.

The Libor scandal erupted in 2012, when it was discovered that at the outbreak of the financial crisis, banks had been misrepresenting their positions during the process of setting the lending rate, helping to boost profits and mask difficulties.

Some 19 City traders were convicted in the US and UK between 2015 and 2019 across nine criminal trials held in London and New York.

Eighteen of these have now been acquitted.

Only one former trader in the world now remains convicted: former Barclays trader Peter Johnson, who was also one of the original whistleblowers in the interest rate rigging scandal. He pleaded guilty on advice that he had little chance at winning at trial. The court confirmed that he too has now applied to appeal against his conviction.

The news has already prompted lawyers and senior politicians to press for the Bank of England and the Treasury to release all their records about their own roles in interest rate 'rigging' during the financial crisis, amid concerns raised of a cover-up of the role of central banks and governments.

'Finally our injustice has been recognised'

Speaking after his conviction was quashed, Bittar said: "Finally the injustice of what I and others suffered has been recognised.

"I am so grateful for those who stood by me through this ordeal and those who worked so tirelessly to correct it."

His wife, Caroline, who lives in the UK, said their family had lost 15 "valuable years", with their children "growing up with this injustice".

She added they were looking forward to "enjoying life with our family and friends without this shadow hanging over us".

On Wednesday, Jay Merchant, Jonathan Mathew, Alex Pabon, Colin Bermingham and Philippe Mouryoussef saw their convictions for 'manipulating' the interest rate benchmarks Libor and Euribor quashed after a 10-year struggle for justice.

They launched fresh appeals against their jail sentences following a Supreme Court ruling last year that acquitted Tom Hayes, the first to be jailed for 'rigging' interest rates in 2015, and Carlo Palombo, jailed in 2019.

Tom Hayes, who was initially sentenced to 14 years, reduced on appeal to 11, is now seeking damages from his former employer UBS.

The traders were among 37 City traders and brokers prosecuted for "manipulating" the interest rate benchmarks Libor and Euribor, which track the cost of borrowing cash between the banks and have been used to set the interest rates on millions of mortgages and commercial loans.

The BBC has uncovered evidence of a much larger, state-led 'rigging' of interest rates, under pressure from central banks and governments across the world. Evidence implicating Downing Street and the Bank of England was suppressed throughout the criminal trials.

Former Conservative cabinet minister David Davis told the BBC the innocent traders had been the victims of a series of miscarriages of justice.

He said the people exonerated this week and before were "the victims of a scapegoating exercise which arose as a result of the government's own misbehaviour in lowballing [falsely understating] Libor interest rates themselves, in order to try and rescue the economy after their own self-induced crash in the late 2000s".

In 2015, during the first trial for interest rate 'rigging', of former UBS trader Hayes, Mr Justice Jeremy Cooke decided as a matter of law that any attempt to influence the rates could not be lawful, and that any rate influenced by commercial interest must automatically be false. Judges in the subsequent eight trials followed suit.