Two top foreign exchange traders employed at HSBC have been charged with making $8m in profits and fees by “front running” a client’s $3.5bn foreign exchange trade, according to a US criminal complaint unsealed yesterday.

根据昨日启封的一份美国刑事起诉书，汇丰(HSBC)两名顶级外汇交易员被控在执行一名客户的35亿美元外汇交易前建“老鼠仓”(front running)，从中斩获800万美元的利润和费用收入。

Mark Johnson, a UK citizen and global head of forex cash trading, was arrested on Tuesday evening at New York’s John F Kennedy airport, on charges of conspiracy¹ and wire fraud.

汇丰的外汇现金交易全球主管、英国公民马克•约翰逊(Mark Johnson)周二晚在美国纽约肯尼迪国际机场被捕，被指控犯有共谋和电讯欺诈。

A warrant was also issued for the arrest of Stuart Scott, a UK citizen who was head of forex cash trading for Europe, the Middle East and Africa until he left HSBC in 2014.

有关部门还对英国公民斯图尔特•斯科特(Stuart Scott)发出逮捕令。他在2014年离开汇丰之前担任该行外汇现金交易的欧洲、中东和非洲主管。

The arrest could cause reputational damage to the global bank’s forex trading business and fuel more calls for HSBC to face full criminal charges. The US Department of Justice has already been criticised for failing to prosecute² HSBC after it paid $2bn in 2012 over laundering³ billions of dollars for Mexican and Colombian drug gangs.

这起逮捕可能给这家全球银行的外汇交易业务带来声誉损害，并且引发更多人呼吁让汇丰面临全面刑事指控。美国司法部(DoJ)已经因为未能对汇丰提起公诉而受到批评，该行此前因帮助墨西哥和哥伦比亚贩毒团伙洗钱数十亿美元而在2012年认罚20亿美元。

The bank is also under DoJ investigation⁴ over alleged⁶ rigging of the $5tn foreign exchange market.

该行还因为涉嫌操纵规模达5万亿美元的外汇市场而受到美国司法部调查。

HSBC and a number of its largest competitors have already paid more than $10bn in civil penalties in connection with the global forex probe. But this case marks one of the first times that individual currency traders have been accused of cheating a specific client, an allegation that could further erode⁷ trust in the bank.

汇丰及其多家大型竞争对手已经为全球外汇操纵调查支付了逾100亿美元民事罚款。但这是刚开始有个体外汇交易员被控欺骗一家特定客户，这一指控可能进一步侵蚀人们对汇丰的信任。

The DoJ alleges⁸ that the traders cheated an unnamed client by deliberately⁹ buying pounds ahead of the customer’s $3.5bn purchase of sterling¹⁰ and reselling it to the client at higher prices.

美国司法部称，涉案交易员欺骗了一家客户（未点明客户名称），他们蓄意抢在客户买入价值35亿美元的英镑之前买入英镑，然后将这些英镑以较高价格转售给这家客户。

The client in question was Cairn Energy, a UK-listed oil and gas producer, according to a person briefed on the investigation.

据一名听取了案情简报的人士透露，此案中涉及的客户是在英国上市的石油和天然气生产商凯恩能源(Cairn Energy)。

In 2011, Cairn sold an ownership interest in an Indian subsidiary for $3.5bn and wanted to convert it into sterling to distribute it to shareholders¹¹. It hired HSBC and required the bank to sign a confidentiality¹² agreement.

2011年，凯恩公司以35亿美元价格出售其在一家印度子公司的所有者权益，并希望将售股所得转换成英镑后派发给股东。该公司聘请了汇丰，并要求该行签署保密协议。

US authorities allege⁵ the traders used a technique known as “ramping¹³” that caused the price of pounds to spike¹⁴. That spike benefited the bank’s trading book at the expense of the client, which then paid a higher price for the sterling.

美国有关部门指控涉案交易员使用一种被称为“炒高价格”(ramping)的操作方法，引发英镑汇率飙升。这一飙升以牺牲客户的利益（因为客户以较高价格买入英镑）为代价，为汇丰的交易账户带来额外进账。

The price spikes¹⁵ caught the attention of an adviser¹⁶ to Cairn, who challenged an unnamed supervisor¹⁷ about the movement. The unnamed supervisor, working with the bankers, then allegedly misled the client by blaming the price increase on a “Russian” bank in the market, US authorities said.

汇率飙升引起了凯恩公司一名顾问的注意，此人就汇率异常变动质问一位未点名的主管。据美国有关部门表示，与银行家们合作的这位未点名的主管，据称随后误导了客户，将汇率飙升归咎于市场上的一家“俄罗斯”银行。

The DoJ alleges the traders made $3m in profits in their own trading book by front running the trades and HSBC received $5m in improper¹⁸ fees.

美国司法部指控涉案交易员通过建“老鼠仓”，在自己的交易账目上斩获300万美元利润，而汇丰获得了500万美元的不当费用收入。

HSBC fired Mr Scott as its head of European currency trading in December 2014, just weeks after the bank paid a $618m fine to US, UK and Swiss regulators for its involvement in the foreign exchange rate-rigging scandal.

汇丰在2014年12月解雇了身为欧洲外汇交易主管的斯科特，而在那几周前，该行因卷入汇率操纵丑闻，向美国、英国和瑞士监管机构认罚6.18亿美元。