News story
Response to Supreme Court judgment
A statement by the Serious Fraud Office on R v Hayes and R v Palombo.
Change of https://www.gov.uk/government/news/response-to-supreme-court-judgment
Change description : 2025-10-06 16:00:00: We have completed our review of cases that could be affected by this judgment. [News and communications]
Showing diff : 2025-08-28 15:16:04.169984546 +00:00..2025-10-06 15:01:17.302531416 +00:00
The Serious Fraud Office investigates and prosecutes the most complex fraud, bribery and corruption cases affecting the UK and the safety of our economy.
Today’s Supreme Court decision comes thirteen years after we first investigated the practice used by some traders and submitters at selected banks to influence key benchmark rates of interest in financial markets.
These rates were called the London Inter-bank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”) and the Euro Inter-bank Offered Rate (“EURIBOR”) and they affected the value of hundreds of trillions of dollars’ worth of financial products around the world, including ordinary people’s pensions, mortgages and savings.
Our investigation led to nine convictions of senior bankers for fraud offences, with two of these individuals pleading guilty and seven found guilty by juries.
This judgment has determined that the legal directions given by the judge to the jury at the conclusion of trial were incorrect in Hayes’ and Palombo’s trials and for that reason their convictions have today been found unsafe.
We have considered this judgment and the full circumstances carefully and determined it would not be in the public interest for us to seek a retrial.
29 August update
We have a duty, as a prosecutor, to inform past defendants about any development that could affect their conviction.
At this point, we have made an assessment on six individuals.
We consider that, in five instances, the circumstances that led to Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo’s appeals being upheld by the Supreme Court could apply to them too.
We consider that the jury directions, given at Hayes’ and subsequently Palombo’s trial and which were the basis of the court’s judgment, may apply to Jonathan Mathew, Jay Merchant, Alex Pabon, Philippe Moryoussef and Colin Bermingham’s trials. Therefore, their convictions may be considered unsafe.
For one individual, Peter Johnson, we have considered the judgment in respect of his guilty plea, and we consider that the conviction is safe.
It is for each defendant to consider whether they wish to progress their case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.Commission or the Court of Appeal.
6 October update
We have completed our review of cases that could be affected by this judgment. This includes Christian Bittar’ who pleaded guilty. We consider his conviction is safe.
Our statement for media on this case is below:
Jason Williams, Serious Fraud Office Head of Division, said:
The Supreme Court found the jury, if properly directed, had ample evidence to convict Hayes and Palombo and left it open to us to re-prosecute. We’ve decided this wouldn’t be in the public interest due to various factors including that the defendants have already served prison sentences.
We have advised every defendant how this judgment may affect their conviction and it’s for them to consider any next steps. We remain firmly committed to our mission to investigate and prosecute the most complex economic crimes in the UK.
Updates to this page
Published 23 July 2025
Last updated -
We have completed our review of cases that could be affected by this judgment.
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Added SFO -28 August 2025 update
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First published.