The UK Financial Conduct Authority dropped an attempt to ban former Libor trader Tom Hayes from the banking industry days after the country’s top court overturned his criminal conviction.

In a statement Friday, the FCA said that the conviction had formed the basis of its civil case against Hayes. The regulator also said it was dropping a similar suit against Carlo Palombo, another trader whose conviction was overturned along with Hayes’.

The UK Supreme Court on Wednesday said the convictions of Hayes and Palombo were tarnished by faulty jury instructions. Both men had been convicted amid a global scandal over allegations that traders had fixed benchmark rates that underpinned more than $350 trillion of loans and securities.

“The FCA have now discontinued proceedings that should never have been brought in the first instance,” said Hayes, who was released from prison in 2021 after serving nearly six years behind bars. “Their attempt to ban me for life whilst resident of a high security prison on the basis that I was a risk to financial markets and the investing public was laughable.” 

A representative for Palombo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The FCA decision means that the pair are free from legal entanglements for the first time in a decade. The Serious Fraud Office, which brought the criminal cases, said it wouldn’t seek a new trial against the men.

Hayes, a former Tokyo-based trader at banks including Citigroup Inc. and UBS Group AG, was found guilty of rate-rigging by a London jury in 2015, kicking off a string of trials against Libor traders that eventually led to nine convictions.

Palombo, a former employee at Barclays Plc was found guilty in 2019.

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