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Paul Thompson, a former Rabobank derivatives trader from Dalkeith, Western Australia, pleaded guilty on July 7, 2016, in federal court in Manhattan to conspiring to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. The U.S. Department of Justice said the scheme sought to influence U.S. dollar and Japanese yen LIBOR in ways that would benefit Rabobank trading positions. “WA” refers to Western Australia; the plea was entered in the Southern District of New York, not Washington state.
What did Paul Thompson admit?
According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s account of admissions made in connection with the plea, Thompson and other Rabobank employees sought to influence LIBOR rates to increase the profitability of his derivatives positions and benefit the bank. The DOJ described Thompson as a former derivatives trader who worked in Hong Kong and Singapore as Rabobank’s Head of Money Market and Derivatives Trading for Northeast Asia.
The DOJ cited electronic communications in which Thompson asked Rabobank Yen LIBOR submitter Paul Robson to move the three-month rate down by one or two basis points. Later, Thompson asked whether the rate could be moved up around large fixings. These examples concern the conduct described in the DOJ’s account of Thompson’s plea; they should not be treated as findings about every other person named in the broader prosecution.
Where and when did he plead guilty?
The DOJ announced Thompson’s plea on July 7, 2016. He pleaded before U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff in the Southern District of New York, a federal court in Manhattan. The DOJ identified him as 50 and from Dalkeith, Western Australia. The case page lists the broader prosecution as United States v. Paul Robson et al., docket 1:14-cr-00272.
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The plea was to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. This is the specific offense description in the DOJ announcement; it is not simply a generic admission to “interest fraud.”
How could a LIBOR rate affect a trader’s positions?
At the time relevant to the charges, LIBOR was a benchmark calculated from submissions by leading banks reflecting the rates they believed they would be charged to borrow from other banks. The DOJ says the USD and yen LIBOR fix at a given maturity used submissions from a 16-bank panel that included Rabobank.
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Derivatives linked to a particular LIBOR rate could gain or lose value as that benchmark moved. A trader with a position tied to the rate therefore had a financial incentive to seek a favorable submission. In the conduct described by the DOJ, requests to move a rate up or down were connected to the profitability of derivative positions—not to a change in the underlying cost of a consumer’s loan.
LIBOR also served as a reference rate for many interest-rate contracts and consumer lending products. The DOJ case summary, citing the Bank for International Settlements, gives an estimate of about $450 trillion in outstanding interest-rate contracts tied to LIBOR as of the second half of 2009. That is a historical estimate of exposure at that time, not a current measure.
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How does Thompson’s plea relate to Rabobank’s separate resolution?
Thompson’s individual plea is distinct from the bank’s earlier institutional resolution and from the cases involving other defendants. The DOJ says Rabobank entered a deferred prosecution agreement on October 29, 2013, and agreed to a $325 million penalty over violations arising from its LIBOR submissions. The broader criminal matter later involved multiple former Rabobank employees, including an indictment and superseding indictment.
The DOJ announcement said Thompson’s sentencing was initially set for November 9, 2016. The official sources cited here confirm the plea and that initial scheduling, but do not establish his final sentence or later individual case disposition.
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What officials said about the case
Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell said, “Confidence in the integrity of our financial markets is critical to the stability of the U.S. economy.” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brent Snyder said, “The defendant conspired to manipulate LIBOR, putting his interests above those who depend on LIBOR as a reliable, impartial reference rate.” FBI Assistant Director in Charge Paul M. Abbate said, “In today’s plea, a former Rabobank executive admitted to his role in conspiring to manipulate the LIBOR interest rate to his bank’s advantage.” These are statements from officials in the DOJ press release, not quotations from the judge.
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Sources and further reading
- U.S. Department of Justice, “Former Rabobank Derivatives Trader Pleads Guilty for Scheme to Manipulate LIBOR Benchmark”, July 7, 2016; page updated February 5, 2025.
- U.S. Department of Justice, United States v. Paul Robson et al., docket 1:14-cr-00272 (S.D.N.Y.); page updated September 27, 2023.
- For a broader account of the LIBOR scandal, David Enrich’s The Spider Network is an optional history of the wider affair, not a Thompson-specific biography.
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