LONDON (Reuters) -A British-Lebanese securities trader wanted in the United States for alleged insider dealing on Wednesday won his fight against extradition at the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court.
Joseph El-Khouri was charged in New York in 2019 alongside five others, accused of being part of an insider trading ring. He faced 17 charges, including securities and wire fraud.
U.S. prosecutors allege El-Khouri made substantial payments to a middleman – including chartering a yacht in Greece and renting a ski chalet in France – for confidential inside information, making profits of around $2 million.
El-Khouri challenged his proposed extradition to the U.S. and the Supreme Court upheld his appeal on Wednesday, ruling that almost all the alleged criminality took place in Britain.
“No part of the conduct alleged to constitute insider dealing can sensibly be considered to have occurred in the United States,” the court said in its written ruling.
El-Khouri’s lawyer Richard Cannon said the ruling’s focus on where the alleged criminal conduct took place “represents an important check on overreach by the U.S. authorities in the way the U.S./UK extradition treaty operates”.
The Supreme Court said in its ruling that El-Khouri had been investigated by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority between November 2016 and January 2018, but that the FCA concluded there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him.
The FCA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Sarah Young and Sachin Ravikumar)
