Sang Tan/Associated PressKweku M. Adoboli, the former UBS trader accused of costing the bank $2.3 billion in losses, at the City of London Magistrates Court on Thursday.
7:21 p.m. | Updated
LONDON — Kweku M. Adoboli, the UBS trader accused of costing the big Swiss bank $2.3 billion in losses, will remain in police custody until a hearing next month after his lawyer said in court on Thursday that Mr. Adoboli would not seek bail.
The British authorities, meanwhile, amended their charges against Mr. Adoboli, adding a second fraud charge for activities from October 2008 through 2010. Mr. Adoboli also faces two charges for false accounting. At the hearing, the prosecutor, David Levy, said Mr. Adoboli had “acted improperly” and that “he carried out reckless and inappropriate trades which he hid.”
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Interactive Timeline: Struggles at Swiss Banking GiantMr. Adoboli’s lawyer, Patrick Gibbs, did not enter a plea at the hearing, but said Mr. Adoboli was “sorry beyond words for what had happened.”
He added, “He stands now appalled at the scale of the consequences of his disastrous miscalculations.”
Wearing a dark gray suit, crisp white shirt and dark blue tie, Mr. Adoboli briefly bowed toward the visitors’ gallery in the court with his hands crossed over his chest. In his second brief court appearance since his arrest a week ago, Mr. Adoboli — who looked tense sitting behind a glass wall in a packed room at the City of London Magistrates Court — spoke only to confirm his name, address and date of birth.
Mr. Adoboli, 31, was arrested on Sept. 15 at 3:30 a.m. on suspicion of fraud after UBS had alerted the police. Authorities filed fraud and false accounting charges the next day. UBS said Sunday that it had lost $2.3 billion as the result of unauthorized trades in equity index futures. Mr. Adoboli, according to the bank, masked those activities from internal risk controls with fictitious trades. Mr. Adoboli worked at the bank’s Delta One desk, focusing on exchange-traded funds.
The next court hearing in the case will be Oct. 20. Prosecutors met with Mr. Adoboli’s legal team on Thursday morning, agreeing to move up the court date.
While Mr. Adoboli was in court in London, UBS’s chief executive, Oswald J. Grübel, was at a board meeting in Singapore where executives discussed the future of the investment banking business and how to improve earnings by restoring investor and client confidence.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=e5556cdf7edb90254ccf83d50edfe770
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