David Stern & James Fletcher on the Supreme Court decision to quash the convictions of former traders
- The Supreme Court has quashed the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, ruling that the trial judges had misdirected juries that trading-motivated submissions were not honest or genuine assessments of the Libor and Euribor rates.
- The court criticised the Serious Fraud Office for the vagueness of its case, and the Court of Appeal for advancing a new basis for setting the rate.
- Calls for a public inquiry have followed, and the judgment could be seen as a defence of the role of jury trials, particularly in complex fraud matters.
On 23 July 2025, the UK Supreme Court unanimously quashed the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo in R v Hayes; R v Palombo [2025] UKSC 29, ruling that the trial judges had misdirected juries by treating as a matter of law that trading-motivated submissions were automatically not honest or genuine assessments of the Libor and Euribor rates, thus removing a factual issue and critical legal defence from jury consideration.
