(Bloomberg) -- Former HSBC Holdings Plc trader Mark Johnson, the first person to be convicted in a global crackdown on currency rigging, was ordered freed from prison as he pursues his appeal.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan granted Johnson’s request to be released in a brief order. Johnson was sentenced in April to two years behind bars and was immediately taken into custody.

A federal jury found the bank’s former global head of foreign exchange guilty of nine counts of wire fraud and conspiracy for front-running a $3.5 billion client order in December 2011. He was convicted in October after a monthlong trial.

The case had been considered a victory for U.S. prosecutors, as Johnson was the first person tried since the global currency-rigging scandal that resulted in the world’s largest banks paying more than $10 billion in penalties. In January, HSBC paid $100 million to resolve a U.S. Justice Department probe into the rigging of currency rates tied to the case.

HSBC was hired by Cairn Energy Plc to convert the proceeds of the sale of a subsidiary from dollars into pounds. Johnson and his colleagues promised to "drip feed" the transaction to avoid an unexpected rise in the rate. Cairn was instead defrauded because it paid a higher price for the U.K. currency after Johnson and his traders "ramped" up the pound, according to a government expert’s testimony.

Ex-HSBC FX Trader Sentenced to 2 Years, Sent Directly to Prison

(Updates with details of case.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net;Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at pathurtado@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Paul Cox

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