Former Deutsche Bank trader Christian Bittar has had his conviction over fixing benchmark interest rates quashed by the UK Court of Appeal, despite pleading guilty more than eight years ago. Bittar, known as "Mr. Basis Point" for his wagers on short-term interest rates, served a 23-month sentence and was released in February 2020. The court ruled his original conviction was unsafe and exonerated him on Friday.
Bittar stated the decision recognized the injustice he and others suffered. The ruling follows a series of overturned convictions for rate-fixing, including former UBS trader Tom Hayes and five Barclays traders earlier this week. Unlike those cases, Bittar pleaded guilty in 2018. The Serious Fraud Office unsuccessfully argued his conviction remained safe due to the plea, though the court respected the decision.
Bittar grew up in Senegal, attended a top French university, and worked as a quantitative analyst at Societe Generale SA before being poached by Deutsche Bank in 2001. He gained notoriety for highly successful wagers on interest rate spreads during the financial crisis, once receiving a £90 million ($119 million) bonus. The judge who sentenced him called him "perhaps the best" derivatives trader in the world. British regulators separately banned him from the finance industry, and Deutsche Bank paid a $2.5 billion fine for failing to prevent rate rigging.
Source: Bloomberg Markets · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing