Ex-HSBC executive can face US extradition: UK court

A former currency trading executive at HSBC can be extradited to the United States to face fraud charges, a British court ruled on Thursday, days after a US jury found his alleged co-conspirator guilty.

Stuart Scott, the banking giant's one-time head of currency trading in London, should be extradited to stand trial on fraud charges in America, a judge at Westminster magistrates' court decided.

Scott, 45, of Hertfordshire -- an affluent county just north of London -- denies the charges.

The district court made no ruling on guilt in the case.

Anne Davies, Scott's defence lawyer, said her team were "disappointed" by the ruling and vowed to appeal.

"We believe the US government´s case to be flawed and materially inaccurate and we also believe that this has led the court to fall into error," she said in a statement.

The decision follows a New York jury on Monday convicting Scott's British ex-boss and alleged co-conspirator Mark Johnson -- once HSBC's head of global cash foreign-exchange trading -- on nine similar counts.

Each count carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence.

The US Justice Department charged the pair in July 2016 with "front-running" -- dealing on advance information -- in a $3.5 billion (3 billion euro) currency order from an energy company, which profited the bank to a tune of $8 million.

The allegations indirectly relate to the global foreign exchange-rigging scandal first exposed in 2013, which led seven banks including HSBC to pay around $10 billion in fines UK, US and Swiss authorities.

Davies said her team do not believe the charges against Scott "constitute any criminal offence when applying UK law."

"This case is unique in that it is a UK centric case, and represents far too aggressive an assertion of the US jurisdiction to criminalise conduct," she added.

Andrew Smith, an extradition specialist at London law firm Corker Binning, said the judgement showed "the relative ease" of extraditing financial misconduct suspects from Britain to the US.

"The two countries enjoy a long-standing and trusted extradition relationship," he added.

"It is an uncontroversial principle that jurisdiction can be founded in the country where the harm of the alleged criminality was felt."

source: AFP