(Bloomberg) --

HSBC Holdings Plc won a U.K. case against a former client who had accused the bank’s traders of front running over 15 years ago.

A London judge ruled that currency investment firm ECU Group Plc brought the claims too late, saying that the company used the trial to make “colourful” arguments about widespread misconduct at HSBC’s foreign exchange desk without offering enough evidence.

ECU Group had alleged that the bank’s currency team deliberately traded ahead of client orders to make a profit, saying HSBC manipulated rates between 2004 and 2006 that affected billions of dollars of orders. The firm, however, couldn’t use adverse U.S. and U.K. regulatory findings over a later period to argue that the misconduct also took place five years earlier, Judge Clare Moulder said in her ruling Monday.

HSBC acknowledged it defrauded two clients by front running in 2010 and 2011 and agreed to pay about $100 million in a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Justice Department. ECU’s lawyer had called its own case a “chronological prequel.”

Mark Johnson, HSBC’s former global head of foreign exchange, was jailed for using his advance knowledge of a big client order to trade ahead of it. His deputy Stuart Scott successfully fought extradition to the U.S. after British judges ruled that much of the alleged misconduct took place in the U.K.

HSBC said it welcomed the ruling. Lawyers for ECU Group as well Michael Petley, the company’s CEO, didn’t immediately return emails seeking comment.

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