Convicted Libor rigger Tom Hayes has had an indictment against him in the US dismissed, as the former UBS and Citigroup trader continues to appeal his sentence in the UK.
US prosecutors who filed charges against Hayes were asked to dismiss their case after the United States Court of Appeal overturned the convictions of two Deutsche Bank traders for similar offences, court documents show.
The Deutsche case “implicates… the government’s ability to prove its case”, the petition granted on 27 October reads.
Attention will now turn to Hayes’ battle to clear his name in the UK.
The former trader served five-and-a-half years of an 11-year sentence for rigging Libor, a benchmark that helps to determine interest rates on mortgages and sizeable corporate loans, before being released in January last year from HMP Ford, a low-security prison in West Sussex.
READ Tom Hayes vows to ‘fight’ after convicted Libor rigger denied right to appeal
In December an independent body that investigates suspected UK miscarriages of justice, called the Criminal Cases Review Commission, provisionally decided it would not refer Hayes’ case to the Court of Appeal.
Hayes’ legal team said they would be asking the Commission to reconsider, continuing a battle to overturn his conviction that has now rumbled on for some six years.
A spokesperson for Hayes said a decision from the Criminal Cases Review Commission on whether to refer his case back to the Court of Appeal was “imminent”.
Hayes was sentenced on the basis of messages between traders asking for “high” or “low” rates that would suit bank trades to be submitted. His lawyers have argued that there were no rules against such requests, and that other factors including his autism diagnosis were not given due consideration in court.
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