Johnson’s sentencing pushed back to April 2

A federal judge in Brooklyn has once again adjourned sentencing for former HSBC currency executive Mark Johnson until April 2 at his lawyers’ request. Johnson is also allowed to remain in the UK until March 26, court documents show.

Johnson was initially scheduled to be sentenced on February 15. However, the presentencing process was delayed when the defence submitted additional financial documents to the probation department, pushing the matter back to March 8 to allow ample time for review.

On February 23, the defence team alerted the judge that it hadn’t received an initial presentencing report from the probation department and asked for sentencing to be adjourned for at least 35 days. Johnson’s team received the report three days later, and his attorney Frank Wohl at law firm Lankler Siffert & Wohl, asked that the sentencing date is revised to April 2. Wohl couldn’t immediately be reached for a comment.

In October 2017, a Brooklyn jury found Johnson guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy for front-running a $3.5 billion (£2.25 billion) foreign exchange fixing transaction that UK oil and gas company Cairn Energy conducted with HSBC on December 7, 2011. The US said the transaction resulted in $8 million in profit and fees that were gained dishonestly.

Johnson was the global head of FX cash trading at HSBC from 2010 until his arrest in 2016. His attorneys plan to appeal the verdict.

Stuart Scott, his co-defendant and former head of FX cash trading for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is awaiting extradition to the US to face similar charges. Scott has also been named by currency manager Ecu Group as one of the traders the manager claims engaged in proprietary trading and the front-running of at least one of three disputed stop-loss orders in 2006. Scott was then the head of HSBC’s European FX desk.

The claims were made in a March 1 court filing in which Ecu Group alleged HSBC breached the terms of an earlier judgement that required the bank hand over trade data and electronic communications relating to the three orders valuing more than €500 million. The currency manager said HSBC has only provided meaningful information about one of the orders, while data for remaining orders doesn’t include time-stamping. It also said HSBC sent data relating to the wrong dates.

Ecu Group is now looking to get a court order to remind HSBC of its obligations under the original pre-action data-disclosure order.