Six financial brokers were "willing and enthusiastic" players in a conspiracy to fix the Libor benchmark interest rate, prosecutors said as their trial opened on Tuesday. The men, known by nicknames including "Lord Libor" and "Big Nose", acted to "corrupt a process that should not have been corrupted", London's Southwark Crown Court heard. They are charged with conspiracy to defraud by trying to manipulate the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) linked to the Japanese yen.
Many of the world's top banks have been hit by scandals over the rigging of Libor rates, which is estimated to underpin the interest rates in some $500 trillion of contracts globally, including mortgages and consumer loans. The six are also accused of conspiring with Tom Hayes, a former Tokyo-based trader for UBS who later joined Citigroup, and others, to manipulate the Libor rate between 2006 and 2010. The jury was told Hayes was convicted of conspiracy to defraud in August. The defendants are Noel Cryan, 49, from Kent; Danny Wilkinson, 48, James Gilmour, 50 and Terry Farr, 44, from Essex; Colin Goodman, 53, from Surrey, and Darrell Read, 50, of New Zealand's capital Wellington.