SFOOn Saturday we had a post about an injunction granted by Mr Justice Cooke against the Wall Street Journal.  The injunction [pdf] was made on an interim basis until the hearing on the Southwark Crown Court today.   At that hearing Mr Justice Cooke refused to renew the injunction which has, therefore, now lapsed.

The Judge said that he had granted the order last week on a temporary basis so that the matter could be fully discussed in court. Following today’s hearing, he said there was “no basis” for the reporting restrictions. He refused applications by lawyers representing alleged co-conspirators for an extension of the injunction but he agreed that 22 names would be removed from the draft indictment.

The Court was told that the SFO had written to 22 individuals to tell them that they were under investigation but none have been charged and many have not been interviewed. At present there are three defendants, Tom Hayes, Terry Farr and James Gilmour.  No pleas were entered at the hearing and there will be a further hearing later this year.

There is a report of today’s hearing in the Wall Street Journal.

As a result of the expiry of the injunction the Wall Street journal has now republished its original article, “”U.K. Expected to Name Alleged Co-Conspirators in Libor Scandal” along with the following “Editor’s Note”

This article was originally published on Oct. 17 and was removed from WSJ.com later that day to comply with a court order issued by an English judge. The article has been republished after the judge allowed the order to expire without renewal on Oct. 21. Prosecutors had planned to publicly name nearly two dozen brokers and traders they believe were involved in a plot to manipulate benchmark interest rates in indictments against three defendants. In a court hearing on Oct. 21, the judge agreed to demands by lawyers representing the alleged co-conspirators to withhold the names of alleged co-conspirators from two of the indictments, which had still been in draft form. The other defendant’s indictment, however, contains some of the alleged co-conspirators related to his charges.

The article includes the names of a number of traders the newspaper says are connected to the Libor investigation.  At the hearing the Judge stressed the fact that just because individuals were named on the draft indictment did not mean that they were suspected of wrongdoing