 "Ex-UBS trader due to enter plea over fraud charges")
London: The former UBS trader accused of unauthorised deals that cost the Swiss bank $2.3 billion will enter a plea for the first time when he appears in a London court on Monday after spending more than four months in prison on remand.
Kweku Adoboli, 31, has been charged with two counts of fraud and two of false accounting in one of the world’s biggest cases of alleged “rogue trading”.
The losses shook the Swiss bank, leading to the resignation of former chief executive Oswald Gruebel and a shake-up of its investment arm to cut its exposure to risk.
A not guilty plea by Adoboli would lead to a trial that will shed light on the bank’s management, traders and risk controls. He faces a maximum 10-year jail sentence if found guilty.
[caption id=“attachment_197050” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Adboli faces a maximum 10-year jail sentence if found guilty of “rogue trading”.Reuters”]  [/caption]
Adoboli, the British-educated son of a retired United Nations official from Ghana, was arrested in London on September 15 and charged a day later.
At his last hearing on December 20, his lawyers said he had changed legal teams because he was unhappy with the advice he had received. That meant he was unable to enter a meaningful plea, his new defence lawyer Paul Garlick told Southwark Crown Court.
Judge Alistair McCreath said he would not accept any further delays and wanted a guarantee that a plea would be entered at Monday’s hearing.
Adoboli, who worked as a director of exchange traded funds, spent Christmas in prison after the hearing was adjourned to give his lawyers more time to work on the case.
UBS said last September that unauthorised trading in its investment division lost the bank $2.3 billion pounds, rocking an industry already trying to cope with the eurozone debt crisis and a global slowdown.
The Swiss bank came close to collapse during the 2008 financial crisis because of its exposure to bad loans in the mortgage market. It cut thousands of jobs and received a state bailout.
The bank’s recovery was then threatened by uncertainty over a deal between Switzerland and the US government designed to clamp down on tax evasion.
Reuters
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