The United Kingdom merchant wins fight against extradition to us for charges for negotiating privileged information

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The UK Supreme Court annulled the extradition to the United States of a merchant accused of exchange of privileged information in an unusual decision of British judges to stop the scope of US justice.

The highest court in the United Kingdom ruled on Wednesday in favor of Joseph El-Kahouri, whom American prosecutors said they obtained $ 2 million of profits from a internal intermediate conspiracy.

El-Khouri, a British and Lebanese national dual who lives in the United Kingdom, was accused in New York in 2019 and accused of obtaining internal information about possible mergers and acquisitions of companies that are quoted in New York.

The Office of the Prosecutor of the United States of Manhattan said that he paid an intermediary for cash and gift information, including a yacht in Greece, a villa in France and a hotel room in New York, and negotiated “contracts by difference” through a United Kingdom corridor.

El-Khouri resisted extradition and accused the US authorities of excess range, arguing that any link with the United States was faint since supposed misconduct took place in London.

A lower court had previously allowed its extradition after an hearing in 2021 and the United Kingdom government ordered that the-Kouri be sent to the United States. An initial appeal of the merchant in the Superior Court of London failed.

But a panel of five senior judges, led by the president of the Supreme Court, Lord Robert Reed, on Wednesday, unanimously ruled in his favor, blocking his removal with the basis that the alleged crime occurred outside the United States.

The court indicated that the United Kingdom’s financial behavior authority conducted an investigation into El-Kahouri between November 2016 and January 2018, but had concluded that there was not enough evidence to process it.

El-Khouri’s lawyer, Richard Cannon from Stokoe Partnership Requests, said the ruling “ends a nightmare of five and a half years” that began with his arrest in 2019.

He added that the decision “represents an important verification on excess” by US authorities.

The United States Department of State in London did not immediately respond to a request for comments.