22 Jul 2016

Peter Binning comments in City A.M. following the arrest of a HSBC trader at JFK airport and charged with fraud

“HSBC TRADER SEIZED BY FBI AND CHARGED WITH FRAUD.

ONE OF HSBC’s top currency traders has been arrested and charged with fraud by US investigators looking into currency fixing and market manipulation.

Mark Johnson, HSBC’s head of global foreign exchange cash trading, was stopped at John F Kennedy airport by FBI agents. He was charged in a federal court in Brooklyn with “conspiring to defraud a client”.

US prosecutors allege Johnson, along with Stuart Scott, HSBC’s former head of foreign exchange trading in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, “front-run” a customer order worth $3.5bn (£2.7bn) in sterling at some point in late 2011 – netting HSBC around $8m in profit…

Peter Binning, a partner who specialises in financial crime at law firm Corker Binning, said: “It is a demonstration of the US Justice Department’s commitment to prosecute individuals and not just content themselves with cases against companies or banks.”

Read the full article in the 21st July 2016 edition of City A.M. here.