A former UBS trader arrested in London on charges of fraud linked with unauthorized trades that cost the Swiss bank more than $2bn pleaded not guilty Monday to the charges against him.

Kweku Adoboli, 31, pleaded not guilty to two counts of fraud and two of false accounting between 2008 and September 2011 at London's Southwark Crown Court.

The trader was arrested on Sept. 14 after on charges of committing fraud that cost the bank over $2 billion.

The incident pushed then-CEO Oswald Gruebel to resign and damaged the bank's efforts to clean up its image after being involved in a United States tax evasion investigation and sustaining huge losses on subprime mortgages during the financial crisis.

City watchdog the Financial Services Authority and its Swiss counterpart have launched an investigation into why UBS failed to spot allegedly fraudulent trading.

Adoboli's case was delayed last year after he replaced his former lawyers at Kingsley Napley law firm with a new team from Bark & Co., which specializes in fraud cases. McCreath set a provisional trial date for September 3 and remanded Adoboli in custody. He said he was willing to hear an application for bail.

An Ohio investment group's lawsuit seeking to collect $100 million on three-decade-old Venezuelan promissory notes is headed back to a federal judge for further deliberations.

The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear the case was a setback for Venezuela, which argued that federal law protects it from U.S. lawsuits because it is a foreign state.

The high court declined on Monday to accept Venezuela's appeal of a 2010 federal appeals court decision that said the suit filed by Skye Ventures of Columbus could go forward in the U.S.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also said a lower court must determine whether the case should be tried in Venezuela, which will be the next step.

Skye seeks payment on the notes from a defunct government-sponsored bank.

A judge overstepped his authority when he tried to ban enforcement around the world of an $18 billion judgment against Chevron Inc. for environmental damage in Ecuador, a federal appeals court said Thursday.

The three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals explained why it lifted the ban last year and blocked a judge from staging a trial to decide if the judgment was obtained fairly.

It said the judge has authority to block collection if Ecuadorean plaintiffs move against Chevron in New York, but law does not give him authority "to dictate to the entire world which judgments are entitled to respect and which countries' courts are to be treated as international pariahs."

The judgment came last February after nearly two decades of litigation that stemmed from the poisoning of land in the Ecuadorean rainforest while the oil company Texaco was operating an oil consortium from 1972 to 1990 in the Amazon. Texaco became a wholly owned subsidiary of Chevron in 2001.

Chevron obtained an order from U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in March blocking Ecuadorean plaintiffs from trying to collect the $18 billion until he could stage a trial to determine whether the judgment was fraudulently obtained.

The Ecuadorean plaintiffs appealed Kaplan's ruling to the 2nd Circuit. The appeals court heard oral arguments and then issued an order in September lifting Kaplan's block on collection efforts. On Thursday, it went a step further, tossing out the portion of Chevron's challenge to the judgment that sought to block its enforcement anywhere in the world.

A Utah mayor who wrote news stories under a false identify is being sued for defamation.

In court papers, Chris Hogan alleges an article by West Valley City Mayor Mike Winder falsely claimed he was accused of extortion and fired from UTOPIA, a fiber-optic network formed by 16 Utah cities.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City seeks a trial, compensation for lost wages and punitive damages.

Among the lawsuit's 14 defendants is Deseret Digital Media, which published Winder's stories under the alias Richard Burwash.

The company's CEO Clark Gilbert has said company officials "deeply regret" the mayor misrepresented himself.

Winder promoted his city and even quoted himself in stories he wrote.

Winder said on Thursday he disputes Hogan's claims and will defend the lawsuit.

A German man pleaded not guilty Tuesday to additional charges accusing him of setting nearly 50 fires, mostly to parked cars, which terrorized parts of Los Angeles over the New Year's weekend.

Deputy Public Defender Gustavo Sztraicher entered the plea in Superior Court on behalf of Harry Burkhart, who spoke only to identify himself and acknowledge that he understood the legal process.

Bail was set at $7.5 million, and Burkhart was scheduled to return to court March 1.

Outside court, Sztraicher had no comment.

Earlier in the day, the criminal complaint against Burkhart was amended to include a total of 100 arson-related counts involving 49 fires in Hollywood, West Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. If convicted, the 24-year-old faces more than 80 years in state prison.

The rash of fires left residents on edge between Dec. 30 and Jan. 2 as parked cars were torched during the night. Some of the fires spread to carports and nearby buildings, including a former home of Doors singer Jim Morrison, and rousted people from their beds. Another one of the blazes was at the Hollywood and Highland entertainment complex, a popular tourist destination bordered by the Walk of Fame.

Gov. Chris Christie moved to diversify the state's all-white Supreme Court on Monday with two firsts: the nominations of an openly gay black man and a Korean-born prosecutor to fill two vacancies.

If confirmed, Bruce A. Harris would become New Jersey's first openly gay justice, and Phillip H. Kwon would become its first Asian representative and the first justice born outside the United States.

Christie, a Republican, said he had "extreme confidence" in the records and intellects of his nominees, neither of whom has been a judge.

"I felt strongly about making sure the court have diversity but first and foremost that the court have quality justices who make sure they take the court in a direction that is a responsible one for the future of our state and its people," Christie said at a news conference attended by the nominees and their families.

Harris, 61, is the Republican mayor of Chatham Borough in Morris County, a post Christie said he would give up if confirmed. He would be the third African-American to be seated on the court.