By Christopher Bjork
Spain's National Court on Thursday denied a U.S. request to
extradite a Spanish J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. employee indicted
in 2013 for allegedly hiding trading losses that cost the bank more
than $6 billion, a case that became known as the "London whale"
trading debacle.
Javier Martín-Artajo, a Spanish citizen who worked at J.P.
Morgan's London office, had opposed extradition and told the
Spanish court the accusations against him were false. Mr.
Martín-Artajo's lawyer had previously said he was confident of
exoneration after a "complete and fair reconstruction of these
complex events is completed."
Mr. Martín-Artajo was released shortly after he had turned
himself in.
In 2013, a federal grand jury in New York accused Mr.
Martín-Artajo as well as a second J.P. Morgan trader, Julien Grout,
of manipulating the value of a trading position "in order to hide
the true extent of significant losses in that trading position,"
according to the Sept. 2013 indictment.
Mr. Grout has previously denied wrongdoing.
The trades were engineered by a trader known as the "London
whale" who had worked closely with Messrs. Martín-Artajo and Grout.
J.P. Morgan agreed to pay more than $1 billion to end an array of
federal and overseas investigations into these money-losing
trades.
The court cited Mr. Martín-Artajo's Spanish nationality and the
fact that the alleged crimes took place outside the U.S. as reasons
for denying the extradition request, according to a court writ.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, which
brought the case, declined to comment.
Write to Christopher Bjork at christopher.bjork@wsj.com
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