Former UBS AG and Citigroup Inc. trader Tom Hayes has been convicted of eight counts of conspiring with other traders and brokers to manipulate Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate, a global benchmark interest rate used to set a range of financial deals, including how banks lend money to each other).
As news of the sentencing emerged, much of the coverage has focused on the quirks of the man in question—the story of an autistic mathematician who was able to manipulate one of the world’s most important financial benchmarks for the price of a Mars bar.
Until there is a collective culture change in the financial industry, we can expect to see the past repeating itself.
