Two currency dealers were sentenced to prison terms yesterday for their part in a rogue trading scandal that lost Australia's biggest bank millions of dollars.
Vince Ficarra, 27, and David Bullen, 34, had said they believed they were following instructions from the head of National Australia Bank's foreign exchange desk, Luke Duffy, when they made fictitious trades that resulted in losses of S$360 million (US$270 million) between September 2003 and January 2004.
They were convicted in the Victoria state County Court on May 27 on dishonesty charges related to the huge losses.
Judge Geoff Chettle sentenced Bullen to 44 months imprisonment, making him eligible for parole after 30 months, while Ficarra was sentenced to 28 months in prison, with a minimum term of 15 months.
The pair were the last of four rogue traders to be imprisoned over the scandal which cost the jobs of some of the bank's most senior executives. Last month, Duffy was sentenced to 29 months in prison after pleading guilty, while a fourth trader, Gianni Gray, was sentenced to 16 months in prison in April.
In sentencing Bullen, the judge told the court the two traders and the rest of their team saw themselves as "invincible."
"In the corporate culture that existed, you forgot your legal responsibilities to the bank, its management and its shareholders," Chettle said.
He said Ficarra had attempted to convince a jury that his behavior was not dishonest while Bullen had pleaded not guilty because of "a peculiar and particular philosophical approach you have to life" stemming from his Buddhist faith.
Chettle said the crimes of Bullen, a senior trader, were committed "in a culture of profit-driven morality."
"Your employment required you to take risks in order to achieve the projections and targets set for your desk," the judge said. "To further your career, you had to succeed."
Chettle said he accepted Ficarra was the most junior of the offenders at the bank's foreign exchange options desk, that his role was "largely mechanical" and that he carried out the instructions of his superior, Duffy.
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