A group of Barclays employees had a request to prevent their names from being published ahead of the UK’s first trial related to manipulation of the London interbank offered rate rejected by a judge yesterday.
“I simply do not see that there is any sufficient case of prejudice” to the trial, Judge Julian Flaux said in dismissing the request.
The names weren’t immediately released.
Affiliates of Guardian Care Homes sued Barclays over an interest-rate swap tied to Libor and argued the benchmark was manipulated.
The swap resulted in a loss for the Wolverhampton, England-based Guardian and Barclays was ordered to give the company’s lawyers the identities and e-mails of bank staff that were included in disclosures to regulators.
Barclays was fined $459 million over its traders trying to manipulate Libor and other interest rates for profit, while UBS was fined $1.5 billion in December for rate-rigging. More than a dozen banks are being investigated in worldwide probes into whether they profited from abusing the process used to set Libor.
David Pannick, a lawyer for the Barclays workers, argued yesterday it was unfair for the employees to be identified when they weren’t parties to the suit and could face serious allegations.
Barclays said the case was without merit and the names shouldn’t be released.