Bank Employees Jailed

Two men were convicted in November of conspiracy and other charges relating to fixing the rate, which is used by banks to borrow from each other and affects trillions of dollars in contracts around the world, including mortgages, bonds and consumer loans.

The judge has hit out at US authorities while jailing two British former bankers for their roles in manipulating the interbank lending rate, Libor.

Anthony Allen and Anthony Conti - both ex-employees of Dutch bank Rabobank - were handed terms of two years and one year respectively but remain free on bail pending appeals as both deny any wrongdoing.

Allen, Rabobank's former global head of liquidity and finance, told the court in Manhattan, New York, he wished he had been more "tuned in" to attempts to influence the rate and stopped it, while Conti pleaded for leniency for the sake of his family.

The men could have potentially faced decades behind bars under the charges but, in his sentencing remarks, the presiding judge said the crimes committed did not justify such penalties.

Nevertheless, US District Judge Jed Rakoff still criticised the government's failure to prosecute individuals from large financial institutions in connection with the financial crisis and other industry failures.

He said he was "mystified" that prosecutors only went after institutions "extracting money from corporate parents, usually at the cost to their innocent shareholders."