{"id":19550,"date":"2025-08-17T06:27:38","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T06:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=19550"},"modified":"2025-08-17T06:27:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T06:27:38","slug":"ex-hsbc-currencies-chief-gets-fraud-conviction-thrown-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=19550","title":{"rendered":"Ex-HSBC currencies chief gets fraud conviction thrown out"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Former HSBC currencies trading chief Mark Johnson had his criminal conviction for wire fraud thrown out on Thursday, after a US appeals court overturned a major courtroom victory for US authorities. <\/p>\n

Johnson was convicted in 2017 of defrauding Scottish energy company Cairn over a $3.5bn transaction in 2011 in which HSBC was hired to convert the proceeds of an asset sale from dollars to sterling. <\/p>\n

Prosecutors said he directed subordinates to buy sterling for proprietary accounts before the client trades were placed, and then executed them in a manner that benefited their own positions, netting $7.3mn in illicit gains. <\/p>\n

His case was the first jury trial to stem from efforts to crack down on manipulation in the $5tn foreign exchange market, in which traders and banks were accused of manipulating rates and front-running client trades. Banks paid around $10bn in fines.<\/p>\n

Johnson served two years in prison for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and paid a $300,000 fine. But as he was completing his sentence, the Supreme Court narrowed the federal scope of fraud by invalidating a key legal theory that was used to convict him. <\/p>\n

Shortly after, Johnson appealed his conviction.\u00a0Two previous petitions for review had been unsuccessful. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are delighted that justice has finally been achieved for Mark Johnson after a nine-year ordeal. This is a case that never should have been brought,\u201d said Alexandra Shapiro, a lawyer for Johnson. <\/p>\n

\u201cMr Johnson carried out the Cairn transaction consistent with industry practice and in violation of no law or rule, and he looks forward to moving on with his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson has maintained his innocence and various industry bodies have defended his actions. <\/p>\n

The forex-rigging scandal over a decade ago followed similar allegations of Libor manipulation by traders at banks around the world. <\/p>\n

Tom Hayes, a former UBS trader who became the first person in the world to be found guilty by a jury of Libor-rigging, has asked the UK Supreme Court to overturn his conviction. The court will hand down its decision next week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Former HSBC currencies trading chief Mark Johnson had his criminal conviction for wire fraud thrown out on Thursday, after a US appeals court overturned a major courtroom victory for US authorities. Johnson was convicted in 2017 of defrauding Scottish energy company Cairn over a $3.5bn transaction in 2011 in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[206],"tags":[604,622,7785,7784,401,7786],"class_list":{"0":"post-19550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-financial-crime","8":"tag-chief","9":"tag-conviction","10":"tag-currencies","11":"tag-exhsbc","12":"tag-fraud","13":"tag-thrown"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}