Former HSBC trader has fraud conviction overturned

A British dealer who was jailed in the USA for allegedly manipulating international trade charges has had his conviction overturned after a nine-year wrestle for justice.Former HSBC dealer Mark Johnson, 59, has fought to determine his innocence ever since he was convicted of fraud in 2017 in reference to a big international trade commerce six years earlier.He served time in jail in US federal prisons and in Wandsworth jail within the UK, exhausting avenues of enchantment earlier than being launched on license in 2022.After the US courts in 2023 overturned a regulation that was used to prosecute him, he launched a recent enchantment, which has now been allowed by a US enchantment court docket, granting him a full acquittal.Mr Johnson’s US lawyer Alexandra Shapiro mentioned: “We’re delighted that justice has lastly been achieved for Mark Johnson, after a nine-year ordeal. This can be a case that by no means ought to have been introduced.”Prosecutors at Mr Johnson’s trial alleged he had conspired with a colleague to extend the worth of sterling towards the greenback earlier than executing an enormous international trade commerce for HSBC’s shopper Cairn Vitality, changing $3.5bn into kilos.They alleged that on behalf of HSBC, Mr Johnson organized to purchase sterling upfront, inflating the forex’s worth in order that the financial institution made a fast achieve earlier than executing the commerce for its shopper at the next worth – so referred to as ‘front-running’.Following his conviction a international trade trade physique, ACI Monetary Markets Affiliation, petitioned the court docket, protesting that buying a forex forward of a big commerce was a traditional trade apply to handle a financial institution’s threat, recognized within the trade as ‘pre-hedging’.”Mr Johnson carried out the Cairn transaction in line with trade apply and in violation of no regulation or rule, and he appears ahead to shifting on along with his life,” mentioned Ms Shapiro.Mr Johnson, a father of 5 from Hampshire, was initially arrested on 19 July 2016 as he accompanied his son and a pal to JFK Airport on his manner dwelling to the UK and was later tried and convicted on 18 October 2017.His arrest happened three days after calls for in Congress for the US authorities to pursue the prosecution of HSBC staff who had prevented going through justice.These calls had been prompted by a congressional report, Too Large to Jail, which revealed that the British authorities had secretly intervened on HSBC’s behalf in 2012, when the financial institution face the chance of prosecution for serving to a Mexican drug cartel launder £881m and for facilitating trades with US-sanctioned nations reminiscent of Iran, Libya and Sudan.Senior executives at HSBC had urged him to simply accept a brand new function within the US in March 2016, 4 months earlier than his subsequent arrest. As a result of he was arrested within the US, it meant that there was no want for extradition proceedings.In contrast his alleged co-conspirator, Stuart Scott, contested extradition to the US and received his listening to. The US Division of Justice later withdrew the fees towards him.