UBS Trading Scandal Trial

A jury was sworn in at Southwark crown court on Monday to hear the case of Kweku Adoboli, a City trader who is accused of causing £1.4bn of losses for his former employer, Swiss bank UBS.

Adoboli, 32, from Whitechapel, east London, attended the court in a dark suit and red tie at the start of his trial for two counts of fraud and two counts of false accounting.

Arrested a year ago after the bank announced the losses, Adoboli denies the charges which are to be heard in a trial that is expected to last eight weeks. In September 2011, UBS announced it had "discovered a loss due to unauthorised trading".

Two of the charges allege false accounting, claiming he falsified records of exchange traded funds (ETFs) – complex financial instruments – between October 2008 and December 2009 and then between January 2010 and September 2011.

The third charge alleges he committed fraud between January 2011 and September 2011 while working as a senior trader in global synthetic equities. The fourth charge, of fraud, relates to activity between 1 October 2008 and 31 December 2010.

The prosecution is expected to begin its evidence on Friday. The case continues.

This article was written by Jill Treanor, for The Guardian on Monday 10th September 2012 18.31 Europe/London