Enron’s subsequent collapse cost 20,000 employees their jobs and destroyed the pensions of many more.
Unlike that dirty duo’s crimes, Hayes’ manipulation of Libor had no clear, identifiable human victims. Some days he moved Libor up a fraction of a per cent, some days down.
As many people basing transactions on Libor probably made money as lost it. The main sufferer from his actions was the trustworthiness of his employer (UBS) and the financial markets.
Yes, this is appalling, but surely more comparable with rogue traders like Kweku Adoboli, Nick Leeson and Jerome Kerviel, who were given between three and seven years by the UK, Singapore and France.
Rogue trader: Kweku Adoboli (Picture: Andrew Cowie, AFP/Getty Images)
Andrew Cowie, AFP/Getty Images
As Navinder Sarao approaches his fourth month in jail awaiting extradition to the US on dubious claims about his part in the Wall Street flash crash, our legal system must be cautious about moving from rightly making examples of rogue traders to scapegoating.
Taking the long view
Having sweated their way to work through the Tube strike, the City’s finest face a hair-greying afternoon tomorrow thanks to the Bank of England’s triple whammy data dump: interest rates, MPC minutes and the quarterly inflation report.
Every number will be extensively spreadsheeted, every word obsessively over-interpreted to guess when the interest rate rise is coming and what tiny amount the increase will be.
Long haul: Mark Carney will give a press conference on the Bank of England's Super Thursday (Picture: Stefan Rousseau, Getty Images)
Stefan Rousseau, Getty Images
Legal & General’s numbers today show it taking a rather more rational view: a quarter percent here or there still leaves borrowing absurdly cheap at a time Britain is starved of investment.
With that in mind, it increased its direct investment — building affordable housing, student accommodation and infrastructure — by a third to £6.2 billion in the past six months alone, with more to come.
