Five former City of London traders convicted in high-profile rate-rigging cases have been referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

The CCRC’s decision opens a fresh legal avenue to challenge longstanding convictions tied to the manipulation of key benchmark interest rates. This follows a landmark Supreme Court ruling in July 2025, which overturned the convictions of two other traders, Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo,  after their cases were found to have been affected by inaccurate jury directions and legal errors in  the original trials. Former cabinet minister David Davis MP has described the overturned ruling as ‘justice at last.’

The referred cases are those of Alex Pabon, Jay Vijay Merchant, Jonathan Mathew, Phillippe Moryoussef and Colin Bermingham. All were convicted between 2016 and 2019 of conspiracy to defraud in connection with the manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (Euribor).

Pabon, Merchant and Mathew were convicted in 2016 at Southwark Crown Court and sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to six-and-a-half years. Moryoussef received an eight-year sentence after fleeing to France before trial, while Bermingham began serving a five-year term in 2019.

In their applications to the CCRC in August 2025, the defendants argued that the trial judges had replicated legal directions subsequently judged to be inaccurate in the Hayes and Palombo cases, undermining the integrity of their convictions. After reviewing submissions and Supreme Court findings, the CCRC concluded there was ‘no distinguishing factor’ between the cases, making the referral appropriate.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which prosecuted in the original cases, acknowledged that the prosecutions ‘may be considered unsafe’ following  the Supreme Court judgement and said it would support the defendantsin their pursuit of appeals.

Legal teams for the traders described the referrals as an essential step toward justice. Ben Rose, who previously represented Palombo in his Supreme Court appeal, reiterated that the case against the traders  is ‘fundamentally unfair and flawed.’

The Court of Appeal must now decide whether the convictions are indeed unsafe.