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Convicted HSBC FX Trader Can Go Home to U.K. Until Sentencing

Convicted HSBC FX Trader Can Go Home to U.K. Until Sentencing

(Bloomberg) -- Mark Johnson, a former HSBC Holdings Plc foreign-exchange trader convicted of a front-running a $3.5 billion client order, can return to the U.K. for the holidays as he awaits a Feb. 15 sentencing in New York.

Rejecting prosecutors’ argument that he may not return to the U.S. to serve his sentence if allowed to leave the country, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn said Johnson has satisfied the conditions of his release. He can go home to Hampshire and must return no later than Feb. 8. 

Johnson was found guilty in October of conspiracy and wire fraud after the first individual criminal trial since the global currency-rigging scandal that resulted in global banks paying more than $10 billion in penalties. The case was a victory for U.S. prosecutors as they seek to root out misconduct in global financial markets.

Johnson, a U.K. citizen, has been free on $1 million bond and was ordered to surrender his passport and restrict his travel to the New York region.

To contact the reporter on this story: Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at pathurtado@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Paul Cox

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