The Supreme Court has granted permission for the cases of former currency traders Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo to be heard by the highest court in the land.
Permission to appeal was granted after the Court of Appeal dismissed both appeals in April following a referral from the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
Though the appeal was dismissed, Lord Justice Bean, Lord Justice Popplewell and Mr Justice Bryan certified a point of law of general public importance relating to the proper construction of the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and Euro Interbank Offered Rate (EURIBOR) definition which allowed Hayes and Palombo to apply to the Supreme Court for permission to appeal.
Hayes, 44, (pictured above right) was convicted in 2015 of multiple charges of conspiracy to defraud in relation to manipulations of the LIBOR. He was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment, later reduced to 11 years. He has always maintained his innocence.
Palombo, 45, (pictured above left) was convicted of conspiracy to defraud by rigging the EURIBOR benchmark interest rate between 2005 and 2009. He was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment following a 2019 trial at Southwark Crown Court.
The CCRC referred both traders’ convictions for rate-rigging to the Court of Appeal following the US second circuit Court of Appeal decision in Connolly and Black, clearing two other traders convicted in 2022. Outstanding charges against Hayes in the US were also dropped.
Hayes’ solicitor Karen Todner said today: ‘It has been a long and tortuous journey, but I’m delighted that the Supreme Court have granted permission for this appeal. The conviction of Tom Hayes is a massive miscarriage of justice that I’ve worked on trying to overturn for eight years and hopefully the end is in sight.’
She added: ‘I’m delighted we have a chance for this dreadful miscarriage of justice to be overturned. Tom’s legal team of myself, Adrian Darbishire KC and Tom Doble will continue to do everything in our power to ensure he is finally cleared.’
Hayes said he was ‘ecstatic’ at the Supreme Court’s decision. He added: ‘It’s time for the UK legal system to align with the rest of the world and for these miscarriages of justice to be corrected.’
Ben Rose, representing Palombo along with Tom Bushnell at Hickman & Rose, said: ‘The Court of Appeal Criminal Division has ruled on the interpretation of LIBOR/EURIBOR five times now and left the UK as an outlier in criminalising this conduct.
‘I sincerely hope that the Supreme Court will reverse these long-standing miscarriages of justice.’
Tim Owen KC, Jonathan Crow KC, Katherine Hardcastle and Tim James-Matthews will represent Palombo at the Supreme Court.
The hearing has yet to be listed.
