UK fines UBS in rogue trade case

MUMBAI - Agence France-Presse

Britain’s financial regulator has fined UBS for failures which allowed a rogue trader to lose $2.3 billion in the country’s biggest-ever fraud case at a bank. The Financial Services Authority said yesterday that it was fining the Swiss-based bank 29.7 million pounds ($47.6 million) after finding serious weaknesses in the London branch of UBS.

Former UBS trader Kweku Adoboli, 32, was last week sentenced to seven years in prison after being convicted of two counts of fraud. “UBS failed to question the increasing revenue of the desk and failed to ensure that there was a corresponding increase in the controls in place over the desk,” said Tracey McDermott, the FSA’s director of enforcement and financial crime. “As a result Adoboli, a relatively junior trader, was allowed to take vast and risky market positions, and UBS failed to manage the risks around that properly.”