The Court of Appeal quashed five former Barclays traders' convictions on October 7, 2025.
Why it matters: The decision could affect future market-manipulation prosecutions and renew scrutiny of benchmark-rate cases. It addresses the safety of the convictions, not whether the underlying submissions were manipulated.
- The convictions of Jay Vijay Merchant, Jonathan Mathew, Philippe Moryoussef, Alex Pabon and Colin Bermingham were quashed on October 7, 2025.
- Pabon, Merchant and Mathew were convicted in 2016; Moryoussef was convicted in 2018 and Bermingham in 2019.
- The cases concerned alleged manipulation of LIBOR and EURIBOR submissions.
- The CCRC said jury misdirection and related legal errors undermined the safety of the convictions.
The England and Wales Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of Jay Vijay Merchant, Jonathan Mathew, Philippe Moryoussef, Alex Pabon and Colin Bermingham, former Barclays traders prosecuted over alleged manipulation of LIBOR and EURIBOR.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission said all five men applied to it in August 2025. The applications followed the Supreme Court's July 2025 decision in the appeals of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo. The CCRC then referred the five cases to the Court of Appeal. The date of each referral is not specified in the supplied materials.
Pabon, Merchant and Mathew were convicted of conspiracy to defraud at Southwark Crown Court in 2016. Their prison sentences ranged from two to six and a half years. Moryoussef was convicted in absentia in 2018 and sentenced to eight years. Bermingham was convicted in 2019 and sentenced to five years; he was responsible for Barclays' daily EURIBOR submissions.
The central issue was how juries were instructed to assess whether benchmark submissions were false or misleading. In its July 2025 ruling, the Supreme Court found that the directions in the Hayes and Palombo cases improperly treated a submission as false if it was not the bank's genuine assessment, even when it fell within a permissible range.
The Court of Appeal applied that reasoning to these cases because the CCRC said the jury-direction errors were not meaningfully distinguishable. The Serious Fraud Office, which brought the original prosecutions, did not oppose the appeals after identifying similar issues. CCRC Chair Dame Vera Baird KC said jury misdirection and other legal errors undermined the safety of the convictions.
By the numbers
- 5 - former Barclays traders whose convictions were quashed
- 2016 to 2019 - years in which the five convictions were entered
- 2 to 6.5 years - sentence range for Pabon, Merchant and Mathew
Yes, but: The ruling does not determine whether the underlying LIBOR or EURIBOR submissions were manipulated; it finds that legal errors affected the safety of the convictions.