U.K. prosecutors attacked the credibility of former Barclays Plc trader Jonathan Mathew, who said he lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and three different regulators in interviews in2010 before deciding to start telling the truth about his actions around fixing Libor.
The 35-year-old is among five ex-bank employees accused of conspiring to fix the benchmark rate. He told lawyers that he and his colleagues only ever paid “lip service” to trader requests to fix Libor. He was offered a non-prosecution deal by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2011 that prompted him to begin telling the truth, he said on his third day of testimony in a London court.
“You lied to a great many people and for a very long time,” JamesHines, the lead prosecutor, said Monday. “The one thing you did not lack, Mr. Mathew, was the opportunity to tell the truth — it was your opportunity to save your own skin.”
Prosecutors say that Mathew and four of his colleagues conspired to rig the London interbank offered rate, which is tied to trillions of dollars in securities and loans. Mathew said that Peter Johnson, his boss, pushed him to deceive bank lawyers investigating the manipulation in 2009. Before that, the partially deaf trader believed that he wasnt doing anything wrong.
Stylianos Contogoulas, 44, Jay Merchant, 45, Alex Pabon, 37, Ryan Reich, 34, and Mathew all deny conspiracy to defraud charges dating from June 1, 2005 to Aug. 31, 2007. Jurors were told last week that Johnson pleaded guilty to rigging Libor in 2012.
“Do you agree that the agreement you reached was dishonest by the standards of reasonable and honest people,” Hines said to Mathew.
“Looking back now, it was not honest,” Mathew said.
