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(Corrects date in 6th paragraph to Mar. 3 from Feb. 3)
By Kirstin Ridley and Freya Berry
LONDON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Three former Barclays traders appeared in a London court on Wednesday charged withrunning a two-year scheme to manipulate Libor benchmark interestrates.
The men, who spoke only to confirm personal details such as addresses, bring to six the number facing criminal charges inBritain over allegations that they rigged the London InterbankOffered Rate, against which about $450 trillion of financialproducts are pegged, from student loans to complex derivatives.
The sprawling Libor investigation, which stretches from North America to Asia and has shaken faith in the financialindustry, has so far resulted in 10 banks and brokerages beingfined a total of $6 billion and charges brought against 13individuals.
Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO), keen to silencecritics who have questioned its ability to secure convictionsfor complex financial crimes, alleges that the latest trioeither submitted or agreed to procure false or misleading dollarLibor rates to boost the trading positions of Barclays staff.
Peter Charles Johnson, 59, Jonathan Mathew, 33, andStylianos Contogoulas, 42, all face one count of conspiracy todefraud between June 2005 and August 2007.
The three men, whose case has been sent to the higherSouthwark Crown Court for Mar. 3, did not indicate any plea andhave been granted conditional bail.
The SFO has already charged three men as part of its Liborinvestigation, including Tom Hayes, a former yen derivativestrader at UBS and Citigroup, who pleaded notguilty in December.
Hayes is due to stand trial in January 2015 on eight chargesof conspiring with staff from at least 10 major banks andbrokerages to manipulate yen Libor rates between 2006 and 2010.
Terry Farr and James Gilmour, two brokers from RP Martin,have been charged and pleaded not guilty to similarfraud-related offences. Their trial has been scheduled forSeptember 2015, in part to allow the SFO time to bring chargesagainst further alleged co-conspirators.
(Editing by David Goodman)
