UT (Tax & Chancery) UT-2022-000134 UT-2022-000135 UT-2022-000137 - [2025] UKUT 00214 (TCC)

During the Relevant Period Mr Urra was Head of European Rates Trading and Head of the EGB Desk at MHI. These roles involved oversight and management of MHI’s market-making activities across a variety of securities, and he was responsible for the supervision of the other traders on the Desk, ie Mr Lopez and Mr Sheth as well as Mr Hill and Mr Barouti.

By the Relevant Period, Mr Urra was an experienced trader, having worked in the financial services industry for 18 years and with 15 years’ experience in trading EGBs, and was well-regarded in the industry. He began his career at JPMorgan in London, and later worked at Lehman Brothers, Standard Chartered Bank and Credit Suisse. He had gained extensive expertise as a market maker, with a particular focus on Government bonds.

Mr Urra joined MHI in October 2013 as Head of Government Bond and Swaps Trading and was promoted to Head of European Rates Trading in 2015. In this role Mr Urra reported to the Head of Fixed Income Trading, Mr Heiberg, and his primary responsibilities as set out in his job description included:

“To manage and develop the European Rates Platform at MHI. To work in conjunction with the Head of Fixed Income trading to build a Rates platform capable of delivering recurrent client-flow orientated revenues and contributing positively to the Fixed Income bottom-line.

…

• To evaluate and manage the existing team of EGB traders with a focus on co-ordinating risk taking from a top down perspective

• To be responsible for the collective risk of the EGB desk in respect of Front Office and Risk Committee limits - to work to enhance the sophistication of the relevant limit infrastructure and controls

• To ensure pro-active risk management of positions, right sizing the risk appetite and balance sheet utilisation according to liquidity conditions and client flows

• To market-make and trade the 0-5 yr part of the curve for all countries with a view to enhancing client flows and generating revenues”

Then:

“Managing Performance. As a manager it is a requirement of your role to ensure that each member of your team is competent to perform their role...

Overall Statement of Responsibility. All employees of the Company at whatever level of seniority have responsibility on a day to day basis for ensuring that there are clear and appropriate reporting lines between them and others for whom they are responsible and that any delegation of duties is to suitable persons, subject to appropriate supervision and monitoring.”

Mr Urra had a range of responsibilities, and they included managing all EGB trading across both the Core and Peripheral markets, supervising repo finance trading, overseeing all EUR- and US-denominated interest rate swap trading by MHI as well as leading interest rates strategy research. He would therefore spend only part of his time working on his responsibilities as Head of the EGB Desk, and this would include both managing the other traders on that Desk and trading on his own book. However, Mr Urra only had one physical desk at MHI, which was with the other traders on the EGB Desk.

Mr Urra was, and was recognised as being, a successful trader at MHI and Mr Heiberg was satisfied with Mr Urra’s personal performance as a trader.

Mr Urra left MHI in September 2019.