Former employees at Barclays Plc charged by U.K. prosecutors over conspiracy to manipulate Libor

U.K. prosecutors charged three former employees of Barclays Plc with conspiring to manipulate Libor. These actions bring the number of people accused in global probes to more than twelve. Serious Fraud Office made an official e-mailed statement today, announcing that Peter Charles Johnson, Jonathan James Mathew and Stylianos Contogoulas were charged with conspiring to defraud.

According to the financial regulators register of people approved to work in the industry, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Mathew were employees of Barclays for about eleven years – from early 2001 until September 2012. Mr. Contogoulas worked for Barclays for about 4 years – from 2002 until 2006, before joining Merrill Lynch.

There is an investigation whether more than twelve companies conspired to rig the Libor led by prosecutors and regulators worldwide. The latter also investigate if the firms in question have used related benchmarks in order to take advantage of their own derivatives trades.

As reported by Bloomberg, Barclays was the first bank that was fined over Libor by the authorities in the U.S. and the U.K. in June 2012. Robert Diamond, who was then the Chief Executive Officer of the company filed his resignation after the scandal.

Serious Fraud Office announced that the three men will appear at a London criminal court at a future date. Barclays spokesman Will Bowen, along with the lawyers of Mr. Peter Johnson and Mr. Jonathan Mathew, refused to make any comments on these rumours. Stylianos Contogoulas lawyer did not immediately return a call to his office.

Tom Hayes, who is a former banker of UBS AG and Citigroup AG, as well as Terry Farr and James Gilmour, who are former brokers at RP Martin, have been previously charged by Serious Fraud Office. The trial of Mr. Hayes is scheduled for January 2015, and the trials of the others are scheduled for later in the same year.

Barclays Plcs shares rose by 1.13% in London to GBX 255.86 by 15:21 GMT, marking a one-year change of -13.77%. According to Financial Times, the 25 analysts offering 12-month price targets for Barclays Plc have a median target of GBX 300.00, with a high estimate of GBX 364.00 and a low estimate of GBX 203.22. The median estimate represents a 18.58% increase from the last close of GBX 253.00.