Ex-Barclays dealer tells court Libor rate promise become 'just banter'

LONDON A former Barclays (BARC.L) trader accused of conspiring to rig a global interest price stated a promise to name a colleague in a book and to invite him to his bar in go back for help in setting Libor turned into "simply banter".

Greek-born Stylianos Contogoulas told Southwark Crown court docket on Wednesday that he had been advised with the aid of his boss inside days of becoming a member of the Barclays dollar table in 2005 to inform a senior colleague the level he desired Libor charges set at.

"‎It turned into done very overtly and in a very regular way and seemed this changed into a ordinary, regular aspect," Contogoulas said on his first day within the witness field.

Contogoulas, 44, is one of 5 former Barclays bankers charged with conspiracy to defraud by manipulating Libor, the London interbank offered fee, a benchmark for rates on round $450 trillion of financial contracts global.

He and previous colleagues Jonathan Mathew, Jay merchant, Alex Pabon and Ryan Reich all deny dishonestly skewing prices - designed to mirror bank borrowing prices - to favor trading positions among June 2005 and September 2007.

As the second one defendant to testify inside the criminal trial, Contogoulas instructed the jury that he have been given no influence that soliciting for Libor fees changed into wrong or cheating, that he had in no way had suitable schooling, had now not sought to conceal such requests ‎and knew Barclays monitored communications.

In an e mail change on March thirteen, 2006, Contogoulas told senior London submitter Peter Johnson: "don't forget once I retire and write a e-book approximately this enterprise your call can be written in golden letters...and you'll have an open invitation to my bar inside the Greek Islands he he"

Johnson replied: "i might decide upon this not to be in any books!"

Contogoulas stated at some stage in his testimony on Wednesday that this changed into all "simply banter, now not serious".

"Did everybody ever comment on your emailed requests to (Libor) submitters?" asked his lawyer J‎ohn Ryder.

"No," stated Contogoulas, including that he spent just minutes every day doing so and acquired no private benefit from doing so.‎

Johnson's attorney declined to touch upon Wednesday.

Contogoulas, who exceeded on Libor requests from more senior new york traders to submitters in London, said he stopped making verbal requests and started out emailing them due to the fact U.S. colleagues may in any other case question whether he changed into passing their requests on.

Emma Deacon, recommend for the severe Fraud office (SFO) prosecuting the case, questioned whether or not Contogoulas became minimizing his function by using imparting himself as a conduit from ny to London, even as in truth he traded the Barclays dollar e book each morning.

"you're no longer looking for to minimize it (your position within the Libor requests)?" Deacon said.

"No," Contogoulas spoke back.

"You had been only a conduit?"

"sure," he stated.

Contogoulas stated the volume of his trades amounted to possibly 5 percent of Barclays' entire quick-give up dollar e-book and his fundamental function became as a "babysitter" at the same time as the ny desk became closed.

Contogoulas's evidence follows that of Mathew, a former Libor submitter, who has instructed the court docket he had been taught through Johnson to alter costs to match investors and handiest realized this became wrong whilst interviewed via Barclays' attorneys in September 2009.

Mathew said he initially lied while U.S. government, who kickstarted a global Libor research in 2008, quizzed him in 2010 because he turned into terrified of his boss Johnson and of losing his process. He simplest instructed the fact while U.S. prosecutors presented him a non-prosecution agreement in 2011, he said.