Five city traders have had their convictions overturned in the Court of Appeal after serving jail sentences for rigging interest rates while working at Barclays bank.

Philippe Moryoussef, Jay Merchant, Colin Bermingham, Jonathan Mathew, and Alex Pabon were convicted following prosecutions by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in one of the biggest scandals of the financial crisis.

The men ⁠applied to clear their names following the Supreme Court judgment last year which overturn the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo for rigging the now-defunct interest rate, Libor and its euro equivalent, Euribor.

The Supreme Court ruled that the ​trial judges had misdirected juries and that legal errors undermined the fairness of the trials. Both men always maintained their innocence, insisting their actions were in line with industry norms and lacked any criminal intent.

Speaking outside the Supreme Court in 2025, Hayes said: ‘So many times I thought about what to say, and I always believed this would happen, it wasn’t a gamble, it wasn’t a criminal offence. I’m very grateful to the Supreme Court. I know how it feels to lose, and today I know how it feels to win.’

He added: ‘There are also seven others and those seven need justice. I hope the SFO has the dignity not to oppose them.’

The SFO didn’t fight the appeals of the five men who had their convictions quashed yesterday, and all of them had their cases referred to the Court of Appeal by the miscarriages of jsutice watchdog, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

Chair of the CCRC, Dame Vera Baird said yesterday: ‘It is only right that these five men have had their convictions quashed today, like Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo. During our review, and following the Supreme Court judgment, we determined there were no distinguishing factors between these cases, and the jury misdirection as well as legal errors undermined the safety of the convictions.’We welcome today’s decision. Anyone else who believes they have been a victim of a miscarriage of justice, and who has already lost their appeal, should apply to us.’

Jonathan Mathew spoke to the BBC following the Court of Appeal’s decision, saying the ‘strain’ of what he had gone through had been a burden on him for the last decade. ‘Having this conviction quashed is not simply about correcting the record, it’s about finally having validation that this is an injustice that never should have happened.’

Jason Williams, Head of Division at the Serious Fraud Office, said in response to the decision that ‘the Supreme Court found that there was ample evidence on which a properly directed jury could have convicted Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo. We deemed it was not in the public interest to seek retrials of these two individuals.’He added after carefully considering this week’s judgement ‘we did not oppose the appeals of five individuals convicted by juries in relation to Libor and Euribor.’

A further attempted appeal by Christian Bittar, a French former Deutsche Bank trader sentenced to jail in 2018, is expected to be heard on Friday. The SFO is contesting his appeal following his guilty plea over eight years ago.