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September 16, 2011 at 09:31 AM
UBS trader Kweku Adoboli, who was charged Friday with engaging in fraud and false accounting since 2008, hired the lawyers who represented rogue trader Nick Leeson in the 1990s.
British police charged that Adoboli, a senior trader in UBS Global Synthetic Equities and the son of a retired U.N. employee from Ghana, falsified accounts related to an exchange traded fund between October 2008 and December 2009 and again between January 2010 and September 2011, Reuters reported.
Adoboli “dishonestly abused that position intending thereby to make a gain for yourself, causing losses to UBS or to expose UBS to risk of loss,” the police charged in a London courtroom as Adoboli wiped tears from his eyes.
Accused by UBS of making unauthorized trades that led to a $2 billion loss for the Swiss bank, Adoboli has engaged lawyers at Kingsley Napley LLP, the firm that represented rogue trader Nick Leeson when he was caught making fraudulent derivative trades in 1995, Bloomberg reported.
Leeson lost $1.4 billion on futures and options markets in Japan and Singapore while working for Barings Bank, causing the collapse of London’s oldest merchant bank. He served more than six years in prison.
On the day of Adoboli’s arrest, UBS stock fell as much as 9.6% in Switzerland, despite the bank’s assertions that the news “will not change the fundamental strength of our firm.”
