(Adds comment from lawyer representing Ryan Reich)
By Kirstin Ridley
LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) - Britain's Serious Fraud Officesaid on Wednesday it would seek the retrial of two formerBarclays traders after a London jury was unable toreach a verdict on whether they had been part of a conspiracy torig global Libor interest rates.
Greek-born Stylianos Contogoulas, 44, and American RyanReich, 34, were left in limbo by the outcome of London's thirdLibor trial that began in April.
Three of their co-defendants -- Jonathan Mathew, JayMerchant and Alex Pabon -- were found guilty and a fourthdefendant in the case, Peter Johnson, pleaded guilty to onecharge of conspiracy to defraud. The men will be sentenced onThursday.
The SFO alleged the men conspired to rig dollar denominatedLibor, the London interbank offered rate, which is a benchmarkfor around $450 trillion in financial contracts and loansworldwide, between June 2005 and September 2007.
But the 12-person jury struggled to reach a verdict onContogoulas and Reich. It was discharged on Monday whenreporting restrictions on the three guilty verdicts were lifted.
"We have asked that the Serious Fraud Office think again asto the need for another trial in this case, Charles Kuhn, apartner at law firm Hickman & Rose who represented Reich, said.
"Mr Reich was a 24-year old first-year trader when he joinedBarclays Bank in 2006. He didn't have his own trading book andhe made no personal profit from the conduct complained of by theSFO," he said.
"The public interest does not require the delay, expense,uncertainty and personal agony of a retrial in this case."
A lawyer for Contogoulas said he did not believe there weregrounds for another trial to take place 12 years after thealleged wrongdoing had taken place.
"Needless to say our client will strenuously contest theseproceedings and continues to assert his innocence of anycriminality," Roland Ellis, a lawyer at Bivonas Law in London,said.
The Barclays trial brought to five the number of menconvicted to date in the British part of a global investigationinto allegations of financial benchmark rate rigging. Two formerbankers from Dutch lender Rabobank have been convicted by a juryin the United States.
Tom Hayes, a former Tokyo-based UBS and Citigroup trader, was convicted in London last August and is servingan 11-year jail sentence. But six former brokers were in Januaryacquitted of conspiring with Hayes to rig Libor.
The SFO said it would announce a date for the retrial "indue course". (Additional reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Keith Weir andJane Merriman)
Barclays (BARC)
