British fraud office seeks retrial of ex-Barclays trio
(Reuters) — The U.K. Serious Fraud Office is seeking a retrial of three former Barclays P.L.C. traders accused of plotting to rig global interest rates after a jury was unable to reach a verdict last week.
A lawyer for the SFO told a London court on Thursday that Carlo Palombo, 39, Sisse Bohart, 41, and 61-year-old Colin Bermingham would face a second trial on charges they conspired to defraud by dishonestly manipulating Euribor rates between January 2005 and December 2009. They deny wrongdoing.
Two co-defendants, former Deutsche Bank star trader Christian Bittar and one-time Barclays trader Philippe Moryoussef, are due to be sentenced later on Thursday.
Lawyers for Mr. Palombo and Ms. Bohart said they were disappointed by the SFO’s decision.
“We have made detailed written submissions to the SFO ... that it would not be in the public interest to re-try our client, but sadly those submissions have been ignored in a single sentence reply,” Ms. Bohart’s lawyer, John Milner, told Reuters. “We will continue to fight the good fight.”
Prosecutors allege the trio conspired with others to dishonestly skew rates designed to reflect interbank borrowing costs in order to bolster bets on interest rate derivatives.
Barclays declined to comment. Deutsche Bank did not immediately provide a comment.
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