Five former Barclays traders jailed for rigging global interest rate benchmarks have won an appeal to clear their names, further unravelling some of the UK Serious Fraud Office's most high-profile prosecutions.
London's Court of Appeal on Wednesday 7 October 2026 quashed the convictions of Philippe Moryoussef, from France, Calcutta-born Jay Merchant, Britons Colin Bermingham and Jonathan Mathew, and Alex Pabon, an American. Judge Andrew Edis said: 'There is a directly applicable decision of the Supreme Court, which in substance, in our judgment, determines these appeals.'
The traders were cast by prosecutors as a symbol of banker greed at a time of taxpayer fury over eye-watering bank bailouts following the 2007-09 credit crisis. They were sentenced to between 33 months and eight years in jail between 2016 and 2019 after a series of landmark SFO trials over the manipulation of Libor and its euro equivalent, Euribor.
The men applied to clear their names after the Supreme Court last year overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes, the former star UBS and Citigroup trader, and ex-Barclays peer Carlo Palombo. The Supreme Court ruled that the trial judges had misdirected juries and that legal errors undermined the fairness of the trials, laying the groundwork for Wednesday's decision.
A tearful Bermingham, 70, said outside the courtroom: 'It's hard to take in. You don't believe it until you hear it.' Mathew, 45, a junior London-based trader convicted of conspiracy to defraud in 2016, said: 'For the last 10 years, the stain of a criminal conviction has been a burden I have carried every minute of every day. Having this conviction quashed is not simply about correcting the record, it's about finally having validation that this is an injustice that never should have happened.'
Moryoussef, now 58, gained notoriety for jumping bail and fleeing to his native France. He was tried in London in his absence, sentenced to eight years in jail, and has remained a fugitive since. 'Today, I am regaining my soul, and for the first time, I can envision my next chapter in peace,' he said in a statement.
Merchant, Pabon and Moryoussef were part of the cohort whose conduct once defined the financial crisis era of banker-bashing. The quashing of their convictions marks a remarkable reversal and raises serious questions about the SFO's handling of the cases that defined its reputation. Judges were due to lay out their full reasons later on Wednesday.