Ex-UBS Trader Adoboli Wins Temporary Reprieve on Deportation

(Bloomberg) -- Kweku Adoboli, a former UBS Group AG trader jailed in 2012 for causing a $2.3 billion loss to the bank, has won a short-term reprieve in his battle to remain in the U.K., according to a lawmaker who’s taken up his case.

Hannah Bardell, member of Parliament for Livingston in Scotland, where Adoboli lives, said by phone that the Home Office had temporarily put on hold plans to deport him to his native Ghana. A spokesman for Adoboli said the 38-year-old went to his local police station Monday for his required monthly check-in, and was allowed to leave.

Adoboli was concerned that he would be detained Monday when reporting to the station. He’s facing removal after serving about half of a seven-year prison sentence for fraud, following a 2012 conviction for causing the multi-billion-dollar loss at the bank’s London unit. Adoboli has lived in the U.K. since age 12 but the Home Office wants to use British laws that require foreign nationals sentenced to more than four years in prison to be sent back to their country of birth.

Bardell, who sent an email to a government minister last week raising concerns about his situation, said he won’t be deported at least until she gets a response. A Home Office spokesman said it didn’t comment on individual cases but that “all foreign nationals who are given a custodial sentence will be considered for removal.”

Rehabilitation

In June, Adoboli lost an appeals court bid to block his deportation, effectively putting an end to his legal challenge.

Bardell said Adoboli should be granted the right to stay because he’d served his time in prison and had since made a positive contribution to society, including by giving lectures and volunteering in the community.

“If we believe in rehabilitation we should be giving him leave to remain,” she said. “He’s made a life for himself in my constituency.”

Bardell told Prime Minister Theresa May in a letter sent Monday that she found it “truly incredible” that the government wanted to deport Adoboli when he had a partner and god-children in the U.K., and was “trying to use his experience to educate others.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Kaye Wiggins in London at kwiggins4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Christopher Elser, Stuart Biggs

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