LONDON: The first financial trader to face prosecution accused of rigging global benchmark interest rates went on trial in London on Tuesday, following a scandal that cost banking giants billions in fines.

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) alleges that Tom Hayes was the ringleader of more than a dozen traders it says worked to rig the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) in the mid to late 2000s.

Formerly a trader with Swiss bank UBS and its US rival Citigroup, the 35-year-old Briton arrived in court in Southwark, across the river from London’s financial centre in a trial expected to last weeks.

“Mr Hayes wanted to make as much money as he could,” prosecutor Mukul Chawla said at the trial.

“All bankers want to maximise their profits but Mr Hayes did it in a dishonest way. He did all in his power to manipulate the bank rate known as the Libor.

“His motive — greed,” he told a packed courtroom.

Chawla accused Hayes of behaving in a “thoroughly dishonest and manipulative manner” and doing “everything in his power” to manipulate the rate.

The prosecutor also recalled the eight charges of conspiracy to defraud against Hayes, and said the defendant was the “ringmaster” of the fraud.

Hayes has pleaded not guilty in the case.

Libor, an estimate of the average interest rate for banks borrowing from other banks, is a key reference for many financial products around the world, from consumer loans to savings accounts.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2015

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