City trio accused of fraud over Libor rate rigging

Colin Goodman, who worked for ICAP, is facing up to 30 years in prison along with fellow brokers Darrell Read and Daniel Wilkinson after fraud allegations against them were filed at a Manhattan court.

It is claimed that in pursuit of bigger bonuses the three men manipulated interbank lending rates for the Japanese yen to help a trader from Swiss bank UBS make millions of dollars on financial markets.

Emails detailed in US court papers showed Goodman was told to “cane the wine bill” when meeting UBS traders and that one might “come over and buy you a curry”, during alleged exchanges about the practice.

Read was said to have told a trader that Goodman was “ok with an annual champagne shipment, a few p*** ups... and a small bonus every now and then”.

In another message signed “Mlord libor”, he allegedly wrote: “How’s my bonus pot looking?” It is alleged that he was later paid £5,000 a quarter.

ICAP was fined $65m (£40.5m) by America’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) and £14m by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

The London-based firm, run by former Conservative party treasurer Michael Spencer, is the fourth organisation to be penalised over the Libor-rigging scandal after a £290m hit on Barclays, £940m for UBS and £391m for Royal Bank of Scotland.

The scandal centres on the manipulation of the rates which govern the price of hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of loans and transactions around the world, including household mortgages, credit cards and student loans.

The FCA said the misconduct by ICAP involved three brokers, with seven other individuals across three desks also participating.