CCRC refers former City traders to Court of Appeal following Supreme Court judgment

The convictions of five City traders have been sent to the Court of Appeal after the Criminal Cases Review Commission determined ‘no distinguishing factor’ between the cases and those of two other traders whose convictions were quashed by the Supreme Court.

The CCRC received applications from Alex Pabon, Jay Vijay Merchant, Jonathan Matthew, Philippe Moryoussef, and Colin Bermingham following the Supreme Court’s decision last year in which judges unanimously quashed the fraud convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, two former ‘IBOR’ City traders, finding their trial judges’ directions to the juries were ‘inaccurate and unfair’.

The London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR), which was phased out in 2023, and Euro Interbank Offered Rate (EURIBOR) are benchmark interest rates for short-term loans between banks. The IBOR rates were calculated daily from submissions by a panel of major banks.

Former Barclays traders Pabon and Merchant, LIBOR traders based in New York, and Mathew, a LIBOR submitter and junior trader based in London, were convicted of conspiracy to defraud in 2016 at Southwark Crown Court.

Pabon was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison, Merchant was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison and Matthew was sentenced to four years.

Moryoussef was a senior trader based in London and was convicted of conspiracy to defraud in 2018 at Southwark Crown Court. He was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment.

Bermingham, who was also based in London, was responsible for making Barclays’ daily EURIBOR submissions. He was convicted in 2019, alongside Palombo, and was given a five-year prison sentence.

In their applications to the CCRC, Pabon, Merchant and Matthew submitted that the trial judge adopted and replicated legal directions which have been found to be wrong, which undermines the safety of their own convictions.

The CCRC said it ‘also believes the defendants were deprived of the opportunity to have their defence cases left to the jury’.

Moryoussef and Bermingham said in their CCRC applications that there were the same misdirections and errors of law as those identified by the Supreme Court in Palombo’s case and ‘there was no sensible basis to distinguish the cases’.

The CCRC said: ‘After analysing the submissions in all five cases and reviewing the directions in the context of the Supreme Court judgment, the CCRC has determined there is no distinguishing factor between these cases and the cases of Mr Hayes and Mr Palombo, and the jury misdirection and legal errors have undermined the safety of all the convictions.’

In August last year, following the Supreme Court judgment a month earlier, the Serious Fraud Office said that the five men’s convictions ‘may be’ considered unsafe.

In the August 2025 statement, the SFO said: ‘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. It is for each defendant to consider whether they wish to progress their case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission or the Court of Appeal.’