Jailed Yen derivatives trader Tom Hayes ordered to hand over £879,000 post-convition; SFO does not get its £2.4 million in assets

Talk about the authorities making an example of one institutional FX trader…

Former UBS and Citigroup Yen derivatives trader Tom Hayes has today been ordered by a judge in London to turn over nearly £879,000 ($1.2 million) after his conviction for manipulating the key benchmark rate, less than half of the £2.4 million the Serious Fraud Office had sought to seize in the case.

Just last week, FinanceFeeds reported that Mr. Hayes, who had become a prominant figure within the criminal investigations into FX rate rigging within interbank desks last year due to the somewhat controversial ruling against him in August in which he was found guilty of eight charges of conspiracy to defraud for his part in the LIBOR rate rigging scandal, consigning him to 14 years in jail, had now experienced the grip of the authorities tightening even further.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO), in addition to Mr. Hayes’ jail sentence which had been reduced from 14 years to 11 years following appeal, made a comprehensive assessment of Mr. Hayes’ assets which range from his home as the principle asset, valued at £1.7 million, his personal pension fund, and somewhat unbelievably, his wife’s wedding ring and engagement ring.

The British authorities have made an example of Mr. Hayes to say the least, and in December last year, his lawyers took his case to the court of appeal, stating that he was denied a fair trial.

At that time, the team of lawyers representing Mr. Hayes believed that the jail sentence was far too harsh, largely because Mr. Hayes’ defense was prevented from delivering key evidence. His sentence was later reduced to 11 years.

At the time of sentencing, famous ‘rogue trader’ Nick Leeson, who had brought down Barings in the early 1990s and served a jail term, his trading escapades later becoming the subject of a movie, had stated he believes Mr. Hayes’ sentence to be “too heavy.”

Mr. Hayes had his sentence reduced to 11 years, which is still the longest sentence handed down to any individual trader since the criminal investigations into LIBOR and FX benchmark rigging had begun two years ago, however this is clearly not enough as the SFO has now brought about a further prosecution case which claims that Mr. Hayes’ ability to increase his profits by working to manipulate LIBOR made him highly valuable to his employers, and demonstrated this by showing internal emails which were sent whilst Mr. Hayes worked at UBS shortly after he was approached by Citigroup reading “If Tom was easily replaceable, Citi would have given up by now.”

Indeed this ruling clearly demonstrates the British authorities’ will to make an example of individual traders with very a very draconian stance indeed.