UBS's Product Control questioned some of Adoboli's trades as early as August 4, 2011, a jury at Southwark Crown Court was told.
Bloomberg reports that William Steward, a former accountant in product control for UBS, said he began looking into trades by Adoboli in August 2011 after receiving a report of a $3.57bn discrepancy.
Steward spent the next several weeks trying to clarify the discrepancy and received explanations from Adoboli that he had used 'a shortcut while he was under pressure for time', rather than booking every trade.
Adoboli said, according to evidence presented Tuesday at the trial: 'The volumes are going through the roof and we’re struggling to keep up with, with all of the procedural stuff'.
'It wasn’t very impressive, but it made sense', Steward testified Tuesday.
'What we were seeing is trades that were being entered that didn’t have another side to them', Steward said. It is 'unusual, but not unknown' (in firms that are literally seeing billions / trillions of dollars in trading volume each day) to have such a large trading amount that isn’t reconciled (immediately), he stated.
Prosecutor Sasha Wass told the jury that the issue for them to consider is whether Adoboli’s explanation to Steward about the trades 'is a genuine explanation or not, or merely designed to confuse'.
Adoboli is charged with fraud and false accounting for allegedly causing UBS a $2.3bn loss through unauthorized trading.
He denies all charges. The case continues.
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