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.
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