By Nate Raymond
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former Rabobank trader on trial in the United States for allegedly engaging in a scheme to manipulate Libor took the stand in his own defense on Tuesday, denying that he helped rig benchmark rates to favor the bank's trading positions.
Anthony Allen, Rabobank's former global head of liquidity and finance, testified in Manhattan federal court that while some at the bank trading derivatives linked to Libor asked him to bias the rate in their favor, he ignored their requests.
"It was just not a relevant consideration when you're setting Libor," Allen said.
In what he described as a lone exception, Allen, a British citizen, acknowledged considering the views of one trader, Lee Stewart, who was among three ex-Rabobank employees who testified for the prosecution after pleading guilty.
But Allen said unlike other traders, Stewart's views were expressed after he conducted his own research, making them at times useful to determine estimates that would be used in calculating Libor.
Allen said he rarely, though, was involved in setting Libor given his supervisor status, and regularly deferred to his subordinate traders to submit numbers used to calculate the rate.
"It required judgment by the traders, and the traders had the expertise," he said.
The testimony came in the trial of Allen and Anthony Conti, a former Rabobank senior trader, who the U.S. Justice Department accuses of engaging in a years-long scheme to manipulate the U.S. dollar and yen Libor rates.
Conti's lawyer said last week that he likewise would testify.
Libor, or the London interbank offered rate, is a short-term rate banks charge each other for loans that is calculated based on submissions by a panel of banks. It underpins hundreds of trillions of dollars in financial products globally.
The case is the first by the Justice Department to go to trial following probes by U.S. and European authorities into whether banks submitted artificial rate estimates to bolster profits on trading derivatives tied to Libor.
Those investigations resulted in charges against 22 people in the United States and United Kingdom and around $9 billion in regulatory settlements with financial institutions.
Allen and Conti were indicted in October 2014, a year after the Netherlands-based bank reached a $1 billion deal resolving related U.S. and European probes. Both deny the charges.
The case is U.S. v. Allen, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 14-cr-00272.