Ex-Barclays Traders Made to Pay $1.6 Million in Euribor Case

(Bloomberg) --

Two former Barclays Plc bankers were ordered to pay over 1.2 million pounds ($1.6 million) in costs to prosecutors after being found guilty of rigging a key benchmark interest rate.

Colin Bermingham and Carlo Palombo were convicted of manipulating Euribor rates a year ago. Bermingham was ordered to pay 300,000 pounds in prosecution costs within 24 months, while Palombo must pay 725,000 pounds.

A London judge also ordered Palombo to pay another 182,000 pounds within three months or face an additional 30 months in jail. He's currently serving a four-year prison sentence for rigging Euribor, while Bermingham is serving five years.

The men were jailed for their role in efforts to manipulate the Euro interbank offered rate, which is related to trillions of dollars worth of loans and derivatives. They were the last two convictions in the Serious Fraud Office's seven-year investigation into rate-rigging allegations.

Lawyers for the men didn't respond to requests for comment.

Palombo worked as a junior trader under Philippe Moryoussef, who was also convicted for manipulating Euribor. Moryoussef worked with a friend, Christian Bittar, at Deutsche Bank AG, in the scheme. Bittar, a star trader who earned a $120 million bonus in 2008 alone, went to jail after pleading guilty to fraud charges in 2018.

Moryoussef, who refused to return to the U.K. for the trial, was convicted in absentia in 2018. The Frenchman was sentenced to 8 eight years in prison, and ordered to pay 675,100 pounds. Bittar was ordered to pay 2.5 million pounds, the SFO said in 2018.

Coffee Boy

Working with Moryoussef was Palombo's first job in banking. In the 2018 trial, he made headlines comparing his job to someone working for McDonald's.

“As ridiculous as it sounds, a coffee boy at Barclays gets paid 400,000 pounds a year,” he told the court.

Bermingham, on the other hand, was one of the most experienced people on the trading floor. His lengthier sentence took into account that he brought colleague Sisse Bohart into the conspiracy. She was acquitted of the charges last year.

--With assistance from Franz Wild.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ellen Milligan in London at emilligan11@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Christopher Elser

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