According to the former Barclay banker defense counsel, the banker who has been accused of interfering with Libor interest rate had done nothing wrong but executed the command from his boss.
Among the five former Barclay bankers who were accused of the conspiracy in the Libor case to defraud by manipulating US dollar Libor rates is Jonathan Mathew. This incident took place between 1st June 2005 and the end of August in the year 2007. The five suspects denied the charge and said that they are very innocent.
Libor is known to be linked to financial contracts worldwide.
Libor, which is the London interbank which is known of rate offering, is regarded as a benchmarked in the whole world in setting the financial products whose price is estimated to be trillion of pounds.
Mr. Jonathan, a 35 years old man has been accused together with his fellow employees who are indentified as Stylioano Contogoulas, who is 44 years old Mr. Jay Vijay, a 45 years old, Mr. Pabon,37 an Mr. Ryana 34 years old. All of them are facing the same charge of manipulating the Libor rate.
“The accused were driven by money to make more profit on their trading”, claimed the prosecutor in the court.
Important man
Mr. Jonathan, in his youthful age of 24, lives with his parents and worked in London, at backlays, he worked at the cash desk.
It was his responsibility to submit the US dollar Libor rate of the bank in the absence of his boss.
According to William Clegg QC, who is Mr. Mathew’s counsel defence, his client has admitted that he had accepted a request mad by traders to adjust the rate but he gained no benefit financially because he was only doing what he was told to do by Mr. Peter Johnson, his boss, who is not on trial.
It has also been said but not confirmed that there was no supervision, training and education at the backlays when it comes to the importance of Libor to the financial markets internationally.
According to the defence council of Mr. Pabon, he had sent a request to those who were responsible for submitting the rates in London to fit his position in trading but he had no any idea that it was wrong to do so as he was also introduced to it.
According to the court, there is clear evidence that the bankers, the senior ones from across the industry were very aware that Libor rate was being manipulated for some reasons related to commercial benefits but no action was taken on the matter.