Various articles report on the trial of Tom Hayes, the UBS and Citi trader who allegedly rigged Libor rates.
The former trader, nicknamed Rainman and Tommy Chocolate, said that everything he did was with complete transparency and that the CEO knew about his actions.
The jury was advised that the 35-year old former Citi employee was diagnosed with a mild form of Asperger’s syndrome – which means that he “had impairment in social interactions, gave heavily fact-laden descriptions, prioritised tasks over people and did not always get humour or irony”.
Hayes is the first trader to stand trial, following a global investigation into the manipulation of financial benchmarks ranging from the London interbank offered rate – Libor, to currency exchange and gold-pricing processes. Several banks have already faced investigations regarding the manipulation of Libor, with some of them, including Barclays and RBS, being fined.
As clearly illustrated by a series of so-called Libor scandals, currency markets operate in ‘no man’s land’ when it comes to supervision and are left unchecked by regulators. There is no good reason for this. If anything, there are plenty of reasons to enforce the same transparency rules for currency markets as for equities and submit these markets to more supervision and more competition. Individual investors and consumers would then benefit from a transparent and competitive market with reasonable prices for currencies.
Full articles: The Financial Times, Bloomberg Business, Business Insider.