The Financial Services Authority has fined a former derivatives trader £750,000 after allegations of deliberate deception and financial conduct were discovered over his period of employment at Canadian investment outfit Toronto-Dominion.
The FSA, which has responsibility for regulating the behaviour of individual traders and institutions was alerted to concerns over Nabeel Naqui following his dismissal from the bank in 2008, after it emerged that he had exaggerated the scale of his trading portfolio in order to appear a more successful trader to management and colleagues.
It is thought that the overestimations amounted to almost £50million, and were the result of a persistent and deliberate course of deception carried out by Mr. Naqui between 2006 and 2008, in what has been described as an attempt to fool staff at Toronto-Dominion that he was delivering better results than was in fact the case.
In addition to his personal fine of £750,000 Mr. Naqui has also been banned from working in the industry, in recognition of the severity and the deliberate nature of his misconduct over the two-year period.
Mr. Naqui’s fine is the latest scandal to hit Toronto-Dominion, just a year after the FSA intervened with a £7million corporate fine in condemnation of persistent, systematic failures throughout its London-based operations.