Rubbish Check
Daily Mail Money · 9 October 2026
source“Former Deutsche Bank trader becomes sixth to have rate-rigging conviction quashed in just three days”
R2/ 10
Lightly altered
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
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In short
Rubbish Talk rates Daily Mail Money's claim that Christian Bittar is the "sixth to have rate-rigging conviction quashed in just three days" a 2/10 because the count checks out (five Barclays traders plus Bittar) and the piece itself, lower down, correctly notes the quashings rest on flawed jury directions rather than full exoneration.
The Verdict
Lightly altered. The headline's core claim, the tally and the timeframe, is accurate and matches both the article's own reporting and independent confirmation of Bittar's Court of Appeal outcome. The one iteration of spin is in the framing, not the figures: "quashed" reads to a casual reader as "innocent," but the Supreme Court precedent driving these reversals found jury direction errors, not that the underlying conduct never happened.
What actually happened
Christian Bittar, a former Deutsche Bank trader who pleaded guilty to rigging Euribor, had his conviction overturned by the Court of Appeal after being sentenced to five years in prison for rigging the primary European interest rate, Euribor, in the run-up to the financial crisis. This followed five former Barclays traders having their Libor convictions overturned days earlier. The wave traces back to a Supreme Court ruling that found the trial judge in Tom Hayes's case gave the jury "legally inaccurate and unfair" directions, while explicitly stating "ample evidence" still existed for a guilty verdict under proper direction.
Key facts
- Bittar was sentenced to five years and four months in 2018 and pleaded guilty before his appeal.
- Five former Barclays traders, including Jay Merchant, had convictions overturned this week after what the article calls a "wrong turn" in trial errors, making Bittar the sixth in three days.
- The SFO brought prosecutions against 20 individuals (2013-2019): seven convicted at trial, two pleaded guilty, eleven acquitted.
- Ben Rose, representing Bittar, noted it "is significant that the Court of Appeal today quashed Christian's conviction in face of opposition from the SFO."
- The Supreme Court found the judge's directions in Hayes's case were "legally inaccurate and unfair," but that "ample evidence" remained for a properly directed jury to convict.
What to watch for
The Court of Appeal has not yet published its full reasoning for Bittar's quashing, so the legal basis could narrow or widen the precedent for remaining appeals, including Peter Johnson's. Watch Jay Merchant's threatened lawsuit against Barclays and whether other outlets conflate "quashed" with "exonerated," a distinction the Supreme Court itself rejected.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
