The trial of trader Kweku Adoboli is to start today. File photo: PA/PA Wire

Trial of UBS trader Kweku Adoboli to begin

Friday, September 14, 2012
9:20 AM

The trial of a City banker accused of losing £1.4billion is to start today.

Kweku Adoboli will appear at Southwark Crown Court to face two counts of fraud and two of false accounting.

Jury selection for the 32-year-old’s trial took place on Monday and the panel were sworn in and sent away until today.

Adoboli, of Clark Street, Whitechapel, east London, is accused of losing the money in Britain’s biggest alleged banking fraud.

He worked for Swiss bank UBS’s global synthetic equities division, buying and selling exchange traded funds, which track different types of stocks, bonds or commodities such as metals.

Adoboli is accused of falsifying records and dishonestly using his position to try to make a personal gain and therefore causing UBS losses or exposing the bank to the risk of loss.

It is alleged that he lost a total of 2.25 billion US dollars. The charges relate to the period between October 2008 and last September.