UBS agrees rogue copper trader settlement
By Christopher Brown-Humes in London
Published: April 8 2006 03:00 | Last updated: April 8 2006 03:00

UBS, the Swiss investment bank, yesterday agreed to pay Y10bn ($86m) to Sumitomo Corp to settle losses stemming from a rogue trader copper scandal a decade ago.

Sumitomo sued both UBS and Chase Manhattan Bank - now part of JPMorgan Chase - in 1999, claiming they should have known about unauthorised trades by Yasuo Hamanaka, Sumitomo’s chief copper trader at the time.

The Japanese trading company claimed the two banks helped Mr Hamanaka - dubbed "Mr Five Per Cent" for the proportion of the copper market he controlled - hide his losses because they provided him with some of the funding. Although the transactions looked like derivatives deals, they were effectively loans that enabled Mr Hamanaka to hide his losses, Sumitomo maintained.

The scandal ended up costing Sumitomo $2.6bn - making it the largest ever rogue trading scandal. Nick Leeson, who brought about the collapse of Barings Bank, ran up losses of $1.4bn.

Chase, which was sued for Y63.8bn, ended up settling for Y16.7bn four years ago. Sumitomo was originally seeking Y27.9bn from UBS. Merrill Lynch, which was also embroiled in the fall-out from the scandal, agreed to pay Sumitomo $275m in 2000.

Mr Hamanaka’s activities sent copper prices spiralling to levels above $3,000 a tonne in the mid-1990s, only for them to collapse once his secret trades were uncovered. He was jailed in 1998 after pleading guilty to charges of fraud and forgery, completing his sentence last year.

Mr Hamanaka’s impact on the copper market seemed a distant memory this week as the red metal hit a series of record highs as inventories tumbled to extremely low levels. Yesterday it was trading at $5,740, down from a record of $5,830 earlier in the week.

UBS said the settlement, which would be reflected in provisions in UBS Investment Bank’s first- quarter results, was not an admission of wrongdoing.

"With the agreement, all claims brought by Sumitomo Corp in the litigation have been settled," it added.

Mr Hamanaka carried out illegal trading for more than a decade until his activities were uncovered.

The recent surge in copper prices has been driven by the combination of forecasts of robust future demand from emerging markets such as India and China with concerns over short-term supply availability and falling inventories.