By Max Colchester and Giles Turner

LONDON--The U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office Friday said it has launched criminal proceedings against 10 Deutsche Bank AG and Barclays PLC employees accused of manipulating the euro interbank offered rate, or Euribor.

The defendants, who will be charged with conspiracy to defraud, will make their first appearance at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Jan. 11, the SFO said. The announcement nearly doubles the number of people charged by U.K. officials in relation to interest-rate rigging.

The Deutsche Bank employees charged are: Christian Bittar, Achim Kraemer, Andreas Hauschild, Joerg Vogt, Ardalan Gharagozlou and Kai-Uwe Kappauf. The Barclays employees are: Colin Bermingham, Carlo Palombo, Philippe Moryoussef and Sisse Bohart.

With the exception of Mr. Bermingham, all are foreign nationals, the SFO said. No extradition has been sought and attendance in court for non-U.K. nationals is voluntary, a spokeswoman for the SFO said.

Achim Kraemer is based in Frankfurt and currently works at Deutsche Bank. A lawyer for Mr. Kraemer said that the charges weren't expected.

Joerg Vogt, also based in Frankfurt and still employed by Deutsche Bank. He is set to leave the bank in December, according to his lawyer.

A lawyer for Ardalan Gharagozlou, a former senior foreign exchange trader at Deutsche Bank in Germany, couldn't be reached for comment.

A lawyer for Kai-Uwe Kappauf declined to comment.

Former Deutsche Bank trader Christian Bittar was fired in 2011 for allegedly trying to manipulate Euribor. Andreas Hauschild left Deutsche Bank in 2007.

The Barclays employees named no longer work for the bank, according to a person familiar with the matter. A Deutsche Bank spokesman declined to comment.

Euribor is a benchmark that helps set interest rates on trillions of dollars of financial products, everything from mortgages to corporate loans to derivatives. Traders have been accused of trying to manipulate the rate to boost their bonuses.

The SFO has now charged a total of 23 people in relation to rate rigging.

Last month, the trial began in London of brokers accused of helping convicted bank trader Tom Hayes rig interest-rate benchmarks for financial gain.

A global investigation into manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, started in 2008 after an article in The Wall Street Journal and other reports questioned the accuracy of the rate in the lead-up to the financial crisis.

In 2012, Barclays became the first bank to settle rate-rigging allegations with global authorities, sparking the resignation of top executives and leading to global regulatory reforms around market benchmarks. At his own trial over the summer, Mr. Hayes was convicted of conspiring with others to manipulate Libor to make money for himself and his employers. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison and is seeking to appeal his conviction and sentence.

Write to Max Colchester at max.colchester@wsj.com and Giles Turner at giles.turner@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 13, 2015 10:45 ET (15:45 GMT)

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