Robert Bogucki, former head of Barclays PLC's New York foreign-exchange trading operation, is seeking the dismissal of criminal charges accusing him of "front-running" a £6 billion currency deal in 2011, by arguing that the investment bank had no fiduciary duty to Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. as its client in the options trade, Financial Times reported July 30.

Bogucki's lawyers argued in a motion to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that Barclays and HP signed contracts that "specifically disclaimed the existence of any fiduciary relationship between them." The motion added that the alleged obligation on which the U.S. Department of Justice's case is built was a false premise "invented out of whole cloth."

Bogucki was charged by the DOJ in January with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and six counts of wire fraud. He is accused of misusing information provided to him by HP to manipulate foreign-exchange options through colleagues when Barclays was advising HP over the 2011 acquisition of U.K.-based Autonomy.

The motion to dismiss will be heard Sept. 4.