Last checked at 
* Court of Appeal judges say no real possibility of juror
bias
* Palombo's lawyer says considering options for further
appeal
* SFO welcomes judgment
(Adds comment from Palombo's lawyer, SFO, details, background)
By Kirstin Ridley
LONDON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Two former Barclays
bankers jailed for conspiring to rig Euribor interest rates on
Wednesday lost an attempt to overturn their convictions at
London's Court of Appeal on the grounds of potential juror bias
and errors by the trial judge.
Colin Bermingham, a former cash market expert and veteran
banker, and Carlo Palombo, who once traded derivatives, were
last year sentenced to five and four years respectively in the
UK Serious Fraud Office's (SFO) sixth rate-rigging prosecution.
"We are very disappointed at the ruling," said Raj Chada,
head of criminal defence at Hodge Jones & Allen Solicitors, who
represents Palombo.
"It remains clear to us that Mr Palombo's conviction is
unsafe and we are considering our options for a further appeal."
The appeal hinged partly on whether trial judge Michael
Gledhill was right not to investigate one juror's financial
knowledge, or his former role at UBS, and whether he
should have given defence lawyers an opportunity to object to
the juror being on the panel.
Defence lawyers said the juror may have possessed or
obtained "extraneous material", could have influenced other
jurors and risked prejudicing the verdict, according to
documents filed with London's Court of Appeal.
But Court of Appeal judges said they did not believe there
was a real possibility that the juror - who worked as an intern
at UBS four years after the end of the indictment period and
nearly six years before serving on the jury - was biased.
Prosecutors alleged the men conspired to defraud by
dishonestly manipulating Euribor - a benchmark that helps
determine interest rates on around $180 trillion of financial
contracts and loans worldwide - by requesting or submitting
"false" rates that took account of commercial interests between
2005 and 2009.
Both men conceded they had made or taken into account trader
rate requests justified by market rates. But they denied
dishonesty, said they had acted openly and that bosses were
aware of the widespread practice.
The SFO welcomed the Court of Appeal ruling.
"Their actions undermined a system critical to the
functioning of the global economy and risked the investments,
savings and pensions of millions of hard-working people," a
spokesperson said.
(Reporting by Kirstin Ridley; Editing by Louise Heavens and Jan
Harvey)
