BREAKING NEWS: Second Circuit Overturns Rabobank LIBOR Convictions

This case -- the first criminal appeal related to the London Interbank Offered Rate ("LIBOR") to reach this (or any) Court of Appeals -- presents the question, among others, whether testimony given by an individual involuntarily under the legal compulsion of a foreign power may be used against that individual in a criminal case in an American court. As employees in the London office of Cooperatieve Centrale Raiffeisen‐Boerenleenbank B.A. in the 2000s, defendants‐appellants Anthony Allen and Anthony Conti ("Defendants") played roles in that bank's LIBOR submission process during the now‐well‐documented heyday of the rate's manipulation. Defendants, each a resident and citizen of the United Kingdom, and both of whom had earlier given compelled testimony in that country, were tried and convicted in the United States before the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Jed S. Rakoff, Judge) for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud.   

While this appeal raises a number of substantial issues, we address only the Fifth Amendment issue, and conclude as follows.   

First, the Fifth Amendment's prohibition on the use of compelled testimony in American criminal proceedings applies even when a foreign sovereign has compelled the testimony.   

Second, when the government makes use of a witness who had substantial exposure to a defendant's compelled testimony, it is required under Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441 (1972), to prove, at a minimum, that the witness's review of the compelled testimony did not shape, alter, or affect the evidence used by the government.   

Third, a bare, generalized denial of taint from a witness who has materially altered his or her testimony after being substantially exposed to a defendant's compelled testimony is insufficient as a matter of law to sustain the prosecution's burden of proof. 

Fourth, in this prosecution, Defendants' compelled testimony was "used" against them, and this impermissible use before the petit and grand juries was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.   

Accordingly, we REVERSE the judgments of conviction and hereby DISMISS the indictment.  

[D]efendants contend that the Government violated their Fifth Amendment rights when it used-in the form of tainted evidence from Robson-their own compelled testimony against them. Specifically, they argue that the District Court applied the wrong legal standard in assessing whether the evidence provided by Robson was tainted by his review of their compelled testimony. They also assert that, properly assessed, the Government cannot meet its burden of showing that Robson's evidence was not tainted, and that the prosecution's use of tainted evidence from Robson was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

In its holding, the Kastigar Court emphasized the breadth of use and derivative use protection. Such protection bars "use of compelled testimony, as well as evidence derived directly and indirectly therefrom." And it "prohibits the prosecutorial authorities from using the compelled testimony in any respect, . . . therefore insur[ing] that the testimony cannot lead to the infliction of criminal penalties on the witness." As the Kastigar Court observed, "[t]his total prohibition on use provides a comprehensive safeguard, barring the use of compelled testimony as an investigatory lead, and also barring the use of any evidence obtained by focusing investigation on a witness as a result of his compelled disclosures." Because this "very substantial protection[] [is] commensurate with that resulting from invoking the privilege itself," it "leaves the witness and the prosecutorial authorities in substantially the same position as if the witness had claimed the Fifth Amendment privilege."   

Kastigar also established a doctrine to enforce this protection. When a witness has been compelled to testify relating to matters for which he is later prosecuted, the government bears "the heavy burden of proving that all of the evidence it proposes to use wasa derived from legitimate independent sources." This burden is "not limited to a negation of taint; rather, it imposes on the prosecution the affirmative duty to prove that the evidence it proposes to use is derived from a legitimate source wholly independent of the compelled testimony."

In the present case, Robson did testify to the FCA regarding Rabobank's submission and alleged manipulation of LIBOR rates, as well as the roles of Allen and Conti, prior to Robson's exposure to Defendants' compelled testimony. But what Robson's "canned" testimony preserved is toxic to the Government's case; it omits or contradicts in material parts the testimony Robson later provided indirectly to the grand jury and directly to the petit jury. At the Kastigar hearing held by the District Court, Robson agreed that "the testimony that [he] gave to the [FCA] and the testimony that [he] gave before the jury in this trial were very different."139 For instance, Robson testified to the jury about an altercation between Stewart and Damon Robbins, an alternate submitter for USD LIBOR, on Rabobank's London desk. But Robson did not testify about this to the FCA, and the Kastigar hearing raised questions about whether he had even seen the incident at all or merely read about it in the compelled testimony.140 Far from rebutting the presumption that Robson's trial testimony was tainted, his pre‐exposure testimony actually evidences such taint through its material differences with Robson's post‐ exposure trial testimony. 

As Robson's FCA testimony hurts rather than helps its cause, the Government appears to contend on appeal that it satisfied its burden solely through Robson's "‘persuasive[ ]'" testimony at the Kastigar hearing.We conclude, however, that Robson's testimony at the hearing falls far short of satisfying the demands of Kastigar. As explained below, the Government adduced, at bottom, nothing more than bare, self‐serving denials from Robson to meet its heavy burden. We hold that such conclusory denials are insufficient as a matter of law to sustain the prosecution's burden of proof under Kastigar in the face of materially inconsistent pre‐exposure testimony.

(1) The Fifth Amendment's prohibition on the use of compelled testimony in American criminal proceedings applies even when a foreign sovereign has compelled the testimony. To be clear, we do not purport to prescribe what the U.K. authorities (or any foreign authority) may do in their witness interviews or their criminal trials. We merely hold that the Self‐Incrimination Clause prohibits the use and derivative use of compelled testimony in an American criminal case against the defendant who provided that testimony.   

(2) When the government uses a witness who has been substantially exposed to a defendant's compelled testimony, it is required under Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441 (1972), to prove, at a minimum, that the witness's review of the compelled testimony did not shape, alter, or affect the evidence used by the government.   

(3) Where, as here, the witness's account of events before exposure was significantly different, and less incriminating, than the testimony ultimately used against the defendants, the witness's bare, generalized denial of taint-here, the witness's conclusory responses to the Government's leading questions during the Kastigar hearing-is insufficient as a matter of law to sustain the prosecution's burden of proof. 

(4) In this prosecution, Defendants' compelled testimony was "used" against them through evidence provided by a tainted witness, a key cooperator and prominent witness both at trial and (via a hearsay presentation) before the grand jury. This tainted testimony was significant both at trial and in the grand jury, because it provided the only first‐hand eyewitness account that refuted the Defendants' central argument for acquittal, and was therefore not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. . .

• LIBOR
• 2Cir
• Rabobank
• FIfth Amendment
• Kastigar
• Allen
• Conti