The Conviction of Tom Hayes and the Global Libor Scandal (Part 1 of our two-part discussion)

Send us Fan MailThis is the first episode in our two-part discussion with Tom Hayes, who we first spoke with in April 2025.  At the time of our first discussion with Tom, recorded in Part 1 of this series, Tom was awaiting a decision of the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court on the appeal of his August 2015 conviction, arising from his work submitting rates on behalf of bank he worked for, which were used to determine the London Interbank Offered Rate (or, LIBOR)—a benchmark rate, to which many other financial instruments were connected.In Part 1, we hear from Tom about his fall from the high-end life of an international banker earning a handsome salary in Japan, and how it all came to a screeching halt on August 3, 2015.  On that day, Tom was convicted by a jury, in the United Kingdom, of a conspiracy to defraud.  The allegation was that Tom and others had submitted rates to benefit the financial institutions they worked for, instead of providing more accurate rates.  For that conduct—what the prosecution characterized as a “manipulation” of LIBOR—Tom was sentenced to 14 years in prison, subsequently reduced to 11 years in prison, of which he ultimately served about 5.