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Old October 12th, 2015 #1
Hugo Böse
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Default Vibrant Rogue Banker Kweku Adoboli fights deportation to Ghana

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Kind water buffalo causes near collapse of world’s largest bank – so they say…
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Rogue trader Kweku Adoboli fights deportation to Ghana

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1f781...#axzz3oFDOavRg

Kweku Adoboli, the UBS rogue trader, is fighting to stay in the UK after an immigration tribunal ruled that he should be deported to his home country of Ghana.

The 35-year-old, who was convicted in 2012 of causing the biggest unauthorised trading loss in UK history while working as a trader for the Swiss bank, came out of prison four months ago.

Mr Adoboli called the decision “heartbreaking” and said that he planned to appeal.

Although Mr Adoboli has lived in England for 23 years, he never sought British citizenship. He argued at a two-day London immigration tribunal in early September that his home was in the UK.

After enrolling in a Quaker boarding school in Yorkshire in 1992, he attended university in Nottingham and began working for UBS after graduation. Though his family lives in Ghana, he left the country as a four-year-old and spent much of his childhood in Jerusalem and the Middle East. He has close friends in Britain and is godfather to several of their children.

“All I want to do is the right thing to make amends for my failings, to build a path of certainty for the future, to help others learn from what I was asked to go away and learn,” he said. “It seems fair that every man should have the opportunity for redemption, to learn from his mistakes and to go home to his family, whoever he deems that family to be.”

The Home Office disagrees. The department seeks to deport any foreign national who has been sentenced to longer than four years except in “exceptional circumstances”. Mr Adoboli was sentenced to seven years in prison and served more than half that time.

Government lawyers argued that he could use “modern methods of communication” to keep in touch with his friends in England if he returned to Ghana.

“On a personal level I have some sympathy with the appellant,” Judge Bartlett said in the ruling, handed down this week. “I am, however, required to apply the law as set out in the various authorities.”

Since his release from Maidstone prison, Mr Adoboli has been staying with friends in London and Edinburgh. He has been unable to look for a job because he does not have the right to work in the country because of the deportation proceedings, which were first served on him in July last year

He wants to do a PhD in the country focusing on corporate governance and work with a former head of compliance education at HSBC “to take an active role teaching senior executives and junior finance professionals how to implement positive cultural change”, according to the ruling.

Mr Adoboli was convicted of two counts of fraud for causing a $2.3bn loss while he was a trader on the exchange traded funds desk in UBS’s investment bank. He was acquitted of four counts of false accounting.

At the time, the judge sentencing him called him a “rogue trader” who was “arrogant enough to think that the bank’s rules for traders” did not apply to him. UBS was later fined about £30m by the UK finance regulator for lack of controls to prevent unauthorised trading.

Ten witnesses at the immigration tribunal included Mr Adoboli’s father, who is a former United Nations official and his former colleague at UBS, Mike Foster. The headmaster at the Ackworth School and Sara George, a partner at Stephenson Harwood, a top criminal defence firm, were among the 13 witnesses who also provided statements in his support.

The judge said he accepted that Mr Adoboli had shown remorse, would be able to support himself financially were he to remain in the country, was unlikely to reoffend and that he had a “substantial private life”.

“The length of residence of the appellant in the United Kingdom and all the related factors to which I have analysed at length are the aspects in respect of which I have given the most anxious consideration,” the judge said.

“I consider, however, that the serious nature of the offence and the requirement to give the most careful consideration to the public interest overrides the factors to which I have referred.”

Mr Adoboli said the offence had “nothing to do with his nationality”.
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Old October 16th, 2015 #2
Hugo Böse
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More from the FT

Quote:
Kweku Adoboli barred from financial sector

Kweku Adoboli, convicted of the UK’s largest banking fraud while he was a trader at UBS, has been barred from working in the industry by the country’s financial watchdog.

Mr Adoboli, who was released from prison in June after serving about half of his seven-year sentence, will no longer be able to hold a regulated position in financial services, the Financial Conduct Authority said on Friday. The 35-year-old also faces deportation to his native Ghana.

“This prohibition order marks the closing of a difficult chapter for me,” said Mr Adoboli, while thanking the FCA for showing restraint. “My hope now is to move forward in a positive way to help others learn from the mistakes I’ve made.”

The former trader was convicted of two counts of fraud after losing $2.3bn through unauthorised trading while at UBS. His arrest in 2011 over the largest rogue-trading loss in British history shocked the City of London, garnering front-page headlines and press scrums in court with every appearance. Prosecutors said the loss was large enough that it could have destabilised the Swiss bank.

It was the fact of Mr Adoboli’s conviction rather than his underlying fraud that the FCA used as a reason for his ban on Friday.

A former colleague of Mr Adoboli at UBS — which had to pay a £30m fine in 2012 over the scandal — was banned by the watchdog last year.

Now released, Mr Adoboli hopes to be a poacher turned gamekeeper by advising compliance teams on how traders can evade financial companies’ systems and controls. Friday’s ban will not prevent him from continuing this work.

“He has served a substantial sentence as a result of his actions and now wishes to repay his debt to society by making a positive contribution to our understanding of how risk management controls in financial markets might be circumvented,” said Sara George, partner at Stephenson Harwood LLP, who represented Mr Adoboli pro bono in relation to his regulatory proceedings. “He is a young man with much to offer.”

However, due to the deportation proceedings, which were first served on him in July last year, he has been unable to look for a permanent job in the UK. Mr Adoboli is appealing the deportation order, which he said was “heartbreaking”. He has lived in the UK since he was 12, but has never sought British citizenship.
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Last edited by Hugo Böse; October 16th, 2015 at 11:26 AM.
 
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