Jailed former Rabobank trader Anthony Conti takes case to 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals

Former Rabobank trader Anthony Conti, who, along with his colleague Anthony Allen, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison earlier this month after judge Jedd in the United States found him guilty of rigging LIBOR rates, appealed his conviction and sentence to the Second Circuit on Monday this week.

Mr. Conti was incarcerated on March 11 this year for manipulating the primary benchmark for global short-term interest rates, whilst Mr. Allen was sentenced to two years imprisonment for his part in manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR).

At the time of delivering the sentence, Judge Rakoff said that he was “mystified” that prosecutors only went after institutions since punishing individuals has a deterrent effect on others in a profession where stepping over boundaries can be tempting if there is seemingly no penalty for doing so.

Additionally, Judge Rakoff stated that the US authorities had begun going after individuals as well as institutions when widespread crimes occur, citing that these employees were “extracting money from corporate parents, usually at the cost to their innocent shareholders.”

The Court of Appeals fo the Second Circuit is one of thirteen US Courts Of Appeals, and its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. An appeal ruling from the Second Circuit would be binding and difficult to overturn, the interesting matter being the anticipation of the outcome of this particular case compared to that of former Yen derivatives trader Tom Hayes who was jailed for 14 years in the UK and had his sentence cut to 11 years following an appeal.