A London jury has found an ex-broker not guilty of rigging the inter-bank lending rate Libor, a day after five others were also acquitted, in a major blow for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) which brought the case.
Darrell Read, an ex-ICAP broker was accused of helping convicted trader Tom Hayes rig Libor, the interest rate at which banks lend to each other.
Following the verdict in London Read said "I'm just incredibly relieved. I'm looking forward to seeing my wife now," according to Bloomberg.
The jury in the four-month trial took just over a day to acquit Noel Cryan, 50, who worked at Tullett Prebon in London, Colin Goodman, 54, and Danny Wilkinson, 49, formerly of ICAP, and Terry Farr, 44, and James Gilmour, 50 of RP Martin Holdings.
The jury had been unable to reach a unanimous verdict on Read, 50, and the judge asked them to continue deliberating on Thursday.
The not guilty verdicts will be unwelcome decisions for the SFO, which has so far secured only one conviction in the Libor rigging affair since launching its case in 2013, that of Hayes last year.
Hayes comment at the time of his arrest was: "This goes much higher than me".
A dozen banks have been fined around $9 billion by global authorities over the last four years as punishment for manipulating Libor - which is used to benchmark interest rates used in trillions of dollars of derivatives and loans - for the financial gain of their employers.
The FCA last April handed Deutsche Bank a £227m fine, its largest ever for LIBOR and EURIBOR-related misconduct, because the bank tried to hamper investigations by misleading the regulator.
More than 30 individuals have been charged.
