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The Guilty Barclays Traders: the Retiree and the Gong Therapist

The Guilty Barclays Traders: the Retiree and the Gong Therapist

(Bloomberg) -- Another Euribor trial is done and leaves a mix of results. Two former Barclays Plc traders were convicted, and another acquitted of conspiring to rig Euribor, the interest rate benchmark behind trillions of dollars worth of securities.

A London jury found Carlo Palombo and Colin Bermingham guilty this week, and cleared Sisse Bohart in a re-trial after a panel couldn’t come to a decision last year. In the first trial, Philippe Moryoussef was found guilty of manipulating Euribor. Christian Bittar, an ex-Deutsche Bank trader, pleaded guilty last year.

Read More:  Second Ex-Barclays Trader Found Guilty of Rigging Euribor

This is what you need to know about the defendants:

The Guilty Barclays Traders: the Retiree and the Gong Therapist

Carlo Palombo | Barclays, London swaps desk

Age: 40
Verdict: Guilty

Milan-born Palombo started as a trainee at Barclays in 2002, with short stints on different teams before he landed on the swaps desk under the tutelage of Philippe Moryoussef.

Palombo repeatedly appeared to become frustrated while he was questioned by the prosecutors, turning to address the jury directly to highlight evidence that wasn’t being discussed at that moment. For instance, he said that when he messaged Deutsche  Bank AG’s Christian Bittar on behalf of Moryoussef, that he never expected the famed trader to listen.

Judge Michael Gledhill later advised Palombo that his digressions could make the jury think he was trying to avoid the prosecutor’s questions.

“I don’t want you to make your situation any worse than it is already,” the judge said.

Palombo left banking to pursue a doctorate in California at U.C. Riverside. While working on his degree, he helped teach ethics to undergrads. He left the program without completing his degree because of the trial. Since the end of the first trial, Palombo started training as a gong therapist. He and his wife, an English woman, are expecting their first child.

The Guilty Barclays Traders: the Retiree and the Gong Therapist

Colin Bermingham | Barclays, London cash desk

Age: 62
Verdict: Guilty
Bermingham joined Barclays at age 18 in 1974 after seeing a newspaper advertisement while he was working in a department store. He retired in 2012, after 38 years with the bank.

He recalled that the trading floor he joined was filled with the constant noise of traders shouting out to one another. The pay for an entry level banker wasn’t very good in those days, so he lived with his parents and couldn’t afford to buy a car for 10 years. He first became a trader in the 1980s as an assistant to the dollar money markets trader.

By the time of the indictment period in the mid-2000s, Bermingham was one of the oldest and most experienced people on the trading floor. He mentored another defendant, Sisse Bohart, and became a fatherly figure away from work, sometimes driving her to the airport when she returned to Denmark on weekends.

Bermingham said there was nothing wrong with choosing a rate that helped one of the traders if it was still a legitimate market rate. He couldn’t remember when the practice started, but said he thought at the time that all the panel banks were doing it. For Barclays to do the same helped to even out the market.

The Guilty Barclays Traders: the Retiree and the Gong Therapist

Sisse Bohart | Barclays, London cash desk

Age: 41 
Verdict: Innocent
Bohart joined Barclays as an IT expert before being given a chance as a trader under Bermingham. She learned to do the Euribor submissions from him. Before she returned to Denmark in 2008, she was the main person at Barclays making Euribor submissions. She has an 18-month-old son and works for an energy company in Denmark.

Bohart struggled to gain the approval of the cash desk’s line manager, Mark Dearlove. Bermingham tried to encourage her and sent her to a course to build her confidence. He belived she was a capable person who could become a successful trader. But Dearlove didn’t share that sentiment and wanted Bohart to be sacked. She resigned in early 2008 instead.

Bohart appeared in more of the messages than anyone else, offering Palombo a rate submission “as high as you like” and saying “your wish is my command.” Barclays didn’t offer Euribor compliance training, Bohart said during her testimony. She constantly took requests from traders, but didn’t consider the purpose. Now Bohart believes she was being "used" by colleagues who were profiting from the contributions, she said at the trial.

 

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Elser at celser@bloomberg.net

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