Credit Suisse Employee Retrial To Begin

by Stewart Douglas

Story link: Credit Suisse Employee Retrial To Begin

A former Credit Suisse employee is facing retrial this week following the decision by a US District Judge last week to continue with the insider trading case laid before him, in a move that could see a heavy custodial sentence pending the outcome of the case.

After having declared a mistrial back in December, Judge Richard Berman said that Hafiz Naseem, formerly of Credit Suisse, had not suffered any prejudice as a result of the ruling, and would be subject to a retrial over the course of next week to determine the outcome of the allegations.

The move comes following an application by Michael Bachner, Hafiz Naseem’s lawyer, for dismissal of the court case following the double jeopardy principle, which prevents an accused being tried more than once for the same criminal event.

However Judge Berman has today announced that the trial will go ahead regardless of the submission, on the grounds that neither the trying authority nor the accused had suffered any prejudice as a result of the mistrial he had declared in December, and consequently the retrial would go ahead as planned.

The mistrial was declared following the revelation that two of the jurors had neglected to follow the instructions they were given, which ultimately had a distortative bearing on the outcome of the initial case. Now a retrial has been scheduled for today with US District Judge Robert Patterson.

The case follows allegations that Naseem was involved in insider dealing after he was accused of leaking insider information to his co-accused, for whom an arrest warrant is still outstanding.

The former Credit Suisse employee was arrested in May 2007, and has pleaded not guilty to the charges laid against him.