Christian Bittar’s rate-rigging conviction quashed despite guilty plea

Christian Bittar, the former Deutsche Bank trader, had his Euribor rate-rigging conviction quashed by London’s Court of Appeal on 9 October 2026, becoming the eighth person to overturn a conviction in the UK benchmark-rate prosecutions. His successful challenge extends the reversals to a case in which the defendant pleaded guilty, rather than being convicted by a jury.

Bittar pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiracy to defraud over manipulation of the Euro Interbank Offered Rate, or Euribor, and was sentenced to five years and four months in prison. Reuters reports that the Court of Appeal will publish its written reasons later. The outcome is established, but its detailed explanation for setting aside his guilty plea remains outstanding.

Why Bittar’s guilty plea mattered

According to PA’s court reporting, Lord Justice Edis, sitting with Justice Goose and Justice Moody, quashed the conviction after Bittar’s lawyers argued that an error identified in an earlier Supreme Court ruling had led him to plead guilty. The Serious Fraud Office opposed his appeal and maintained that the conviction was safe.

In written submissions, Bittar’s barrister Adrian Darbishire KC said his client admitted the offence on 2 March 2018 on the basis of erroneous court decisions about what prosecutors had to prove. Reuters reports that Darbishire argued prosecutors had not been required to establish that Bittar agreed to the submission of ‘false or misleading’ Euribor rates.

The Supreme Court precedent on benchmark rates

The appeals followed the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision on 23 July 2025 to quash the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo. Hayes had been convicted in August 2015 over Libor, the London Interbank Offered Rate; Palombo’s March 2019 conviction concerned Euribor.

The Supreme Court’s official press summary explains that benchmark submissions involved estimates of borrowing costs. Libor concerned the submitting bank’s borrowing rate, while Euribor concerned that of a prime bank. Submitted rates were trimmed and averaged to produce benchmarks used as reference points in financial transactions, including derivatives.

The court explained that a range of figures could legitimately answer the benchmark question. Seeking a commercial advantage did not automatically make a submission legally false or dishonest. Whether submissions reflected genuine opinions was a factual question for juries, but erroneous directions had removed essential questions from their consideration.

Those errors made Hayes’s trial unfair and Palombo’s conviction unsafe. The Supreme Court also said there was ample evidence on which a properly directed jury could have convicted Hayes. Its decision therefore did not establish that every underlying trading practice was lawful.

The benchmarks had wide financial significance: the Guardian reports that Libor and Euribor affected pensions, mortgages and savings, alongside financial products worth hundreds of trillions of pounds and euros. Libor is now defunct. Friday’s decision concerns Bittar’s criminal conviction; the reporting establishes no resulting change to customers’ payments.

Six convictions overturned this week

Bittar’s ruling followed Wednesday’s overturning of convictions against five former Barclays employees: Jay Vijay Merchant, Jonathan Mathew, Philippe Moryoussef, Alex Pabon and Colin Bermingham. Unlike Bittar’s case, the SFO did not oppose those appeals. Friday’s decision brought the week’s total to six.

Bittar said: ‘I have waited a very, very long time for this day. Finally, the injustice of what I and others suffered has been recognised.’ He also thanked those who supported him and worked to correct his conviction.

Jason Williams, the SFO’s head of division, said the agency had argued for a different outcome but respected the decision. He said it remained committed to tackling complex fraud, bribery and corruption. Bittar’s solicitor Ben Rose criticised the agency, calling it a ‘scandal that the SFO has consistently failed to uphold its duty to ensure that these trials are fair’. That was Rose’s criticism, not a separately established finding of misconduct.

Peter Johnson’s challenge remains unresolved

The Guardian reports that nine bankers received convictions in these prosecutions. With eight overturned, Peter Johnson remains the ninth former trader pursuing a challenge. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to manipulate Libor in 2014.

Johnson’s lawyer Ellen Gallagher, a partner at Vardags, said: ‘Peter’s fight to clear his name continues.’ She said he had filed provisional grounds as a first step towards an appeal. No hearing date or outcome for that challenge was established in the reporting.