Two former Deutsche Bank traders were indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges that they manipulated the U.S. dollar LIBOR rate benchmark for interest-rate contracts.
Matthew Connolly and Gavin Campbell Black were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud and nine counts of wire fraud, the U.S. Justice Department said in a news release Thursday.
The two are accused of helping to manipulate the USD London Interbank Offered Rate that benefited “their own or Deutsche Bank’s financial positions in derivatives that were linked to those benchmarks,” according to the release. The indictment claims Mr. Connolly, who was Deutsche Bank’s director of the pool trading desk in New York, and Mr. Black, a director on Deutsche Bank’s London money market derivatives desk, directed the submission of fraudulent LIBOR contributions to benefit their or the bank’s financial interests.
The case will be heard in U.S. District Court in New York.
Michael Curtler, a former Deutsche Bank trader and manager of the London money market derivatives desk, pleaded guilty in October to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud in connection with his role in the scheme, the Justice Department said.
In April 2015, Deutsche Bank and Deutsche Bank Group Services (U.K.) paid a combined $775 million penalty for their role in a scheme to defraud counterparties to interest rate derivatives trades by secretly manipulating USD LIBOR and other currencies submissions.
