Trader tried to rig key HSBC rate, court told

A “greedy” City trader tried to involve his “cheeky young graduate” stepbrother in an attempt to rig a key interest rate, a court has heard.

Tom Hayes, 35, encouraged Peter O’Leary to buy a “few drinks” for his colleague at HSBC in an effort to influence where the bank set its yen Libor rate, jurors at Southwark Crown Court were told.

Prosecutors claim Hayes, a former UBS and Citigroup trader, was motivated by “greed” and acted as “ringmaster” in an enormous fraud to rig the benchmark interest rate, which is behind trillions of dollars worth of financial deals.