LONDON — Former UBS trader Kweku Adoboli on Tuesday told a London court that he “lost control” in the summer of 2011 but insisted he never acted dishonestly in the frantic weeks that resulted in losses of $2.3 billion.
Ending an emotional three-day defense against charges of fraud and false accounting, a tearful Adoboli said he was “devastated” and “sorry beyond words” about the losses.
But he attacked the culture of investment banks, arguing that compliance rules were “aspirational” and that traders had to bend rules to achieve the goals set by senior management.
The 32-year-old, British-educated Ghanaian, who was a senior trader on the Exchange Traded Funds desk at UBS’s London offices, was arrested Sept. 15, 2011. He denies two counts of fraud and four of false accounting.
The prosecution says he traded far in excess of his risk limits and concealed his positions with fictitious accounting. Adoboli says everything he did was for the benefit of UBS, a bank he considered “his family.”
“I’m devastated to have put UBS in that position,” he told the court. “I’m devastated that my friends lost their jobs. I’m devastated that in order to tell the world who I am I have to tell things about my organization that they wouldn’t want me to.
“But in the end, the reason I’m most sad is because the losses weren’t the result of dishonesty or fraudulent behavior. They were the result of a group of traders asked to do too much with too little resources.”
