Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Prison sentence for UBS trader

Updated at 11:21 am on 21 November 2012

A former UBS trader has been sentenced in Britain to prison for seven years on two charges fraud.

Kweku Adoboli, 32, cost the Swiss bank $US2.3 billion after admitting trading far in excess of authorised risk limits and booking fictitious trades to hide his true positions.

He argued everything he did was to make profits for UBS, and was in line with the bank's culture.

The jury disagreed, though Adoboli Adoboli, 32, of Whitechapel, east London, was cleared of four charges of false accounting.

He had denied the charges, which related to the period between October 2008 - September 2011.

Adoboli, who was arrested on 15 September 2011, worked in the global synthetic equities division at UBS, buying and selling exchange traded funds, which track stocks, bonds and commodities. He joined the bank in 2003 and became a trader in 2006.

The court was told that at one point he stood to lose the bank $US12 billion.

Justice Brian Keith told Adoboli he had everything going for him, but he was arrogant enough to think that the bank's rules for traders didn't apply to him.

HIs actions damaged the reputation of UBS, forcing the eventual resignation of its chief executive and others, and prompting job cuts and plans to wind down much of its investment bank.

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