Tom Hayes is hit out against his former employers UBS. In a lawsuit filed Monday in a Connecticut state superior court, the former trader is going after the company for $400 million in damages.
Accusing the Swiss bank for making out to be the “evil mastermind” behind the alleged London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) scandal, and for hand-picking him as their “scapegoat,” he insisted that UBS did it all to save face in the industry. And now, he suing the investment bank for “malicious prosecution,” arguing that its investigation that sought to strategically put the blame on him was “fundamentally flawed.”
Addressing the UBS lawsuit, Hayes said that it took over a decade to clear his name from a “wrongful conviction.” As quoted by The Guardian, the trader added, “My legal team are now rightfully holding UBS to account for scapegoating me in order to save billions in fines and protect its senior executives.”
He has since blamed having lost his “liberty,” “marriage” and his “son’s childhood” and a lot more on UBS “destroying” his reputation and career in one of the biggest scandals of the 2008 financial crisis. Per Hayes’ claims, UBS “offered” him “up on a silver platter” to prosecutors in the US and the UK.
Who is Tom Hayes?
Years ago, Tom became the subject of contentious headlines as the Financial Conduct Authority wanted to ban the former UBS trader over alleged Libor rigging. The now-defunct London Interbank Offered Rate was used to set interest rates throughout the financial system, according to the Financial Times.
Although some other names were also dragged into the scandal, Hayes was the first person to face a jury trial for rigging the rate. Back in 2015, the jury found him guilty on all 8 charges of conspiracy to defraud. The Serious Fraud Office brought up the case at the time, accusing Hayes of organising a network of brokers and traders across 10 financial institutions and bribing them to help rig Libor rates for profit.
After being embroiled in a 10-year legal battle, Hayes had his conviction overturned in July, with the UK Supreme Court ruling it unfair.
Having worked at UBS from 2006 to 2009, he was initially taken into custody in 2012 over the investigation circling the manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate. Although now exonerated of the allegations to some extent, the ex-trader was originally jailed for 14 years, with the sentence eventually lowering down to 11 years following an appeal, according to Bloomberg.
At the time, the court cited “ample evidence” forming the basis for conviction. Simultaneously, it also countered by suggesting that Hayes was not fully granted a fair trial. In an 82-page judgment tied to his July exoneration, Lord Leggatt said “that misdirection undermined the fairness of the trial,” with the ruling adding, “The convictions are therefore unsafe and cannot stand.”
Also a former Citigroup trader, Hayes was found guilty in the UK of manipulating the Libor in 2015. Having been released from prison in 2021, he got bent on challenging claims of being at the centre of a criminal offence. Given his obsession with numbers, Hayes was even nicknamed “Rainman,” as per the Financial Times. Arguing his case, he has since even insisted that whatever he did at the time was known to his superiors.
“Tom Hayes did not do anything wrong, and UBS knows it,” his legal team states in the now public filing. “Even though UBS knew that Hayes acted at its direction and in accordance with long-standing practices, it misrepresented his conduct to authorities as improper.”