First criminal Libor trial begins in London

The first criminal trial for the manipulation of a key interest rate, known as Libor, begun in a London court on Tuesday, according to local media.

The trial was three years after Britain's fraud squad first began to investigate rate rigging.

Tom Hayes, 35, a former UBS and Citigroup trader, was motivated by greed and acted as "ringmaster" in rigging the Libor rates. He has been accused of acting in a "thoroughly dishonest and manipulative manner" to manipulate the lending rates.

Hayes is on trial for eight counts of conspiracy to defraud between 2006 and 2010, all of which he denies.

Mukul Chawla QC, acting for the prosecution, said Hayes had "repeatedly cheated those with whom he had entered into huge financial transactions."

Chawla added: "He was the ringmaster at the very centre, telling others around him what to do and in a number of cases rewarding them for their dishonest assistance."

"The motive was a simple one: it was greed," Chawla pointed out.

Hayes joined UBS in September 2006, where he was employed as a trader in Tokyo. He left UBS and joined Citigroup in September 2009, according to local media.

Libor, the London Interbank Offered Rate, is an interest rate used by banks around the world to set the price of financial products worth billions of pounds.

It is set daily and is considered to be one of the most important interest rates in finance. The way Libor is calculated was changed after the rate-rigging scandal. Endit