The former head of Barclays' foreign exchange trading operation in New York was arraigned Wednesday on wire fraud charges for allegedly “front-running” ahead of a large trade on behalf of client Hewlett-Packard.

Robert Bogucki was charged Tuesday in an unsealed indictment in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California with six counts of wire fraud and a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Bogucki, a Long Island resident, made his first appearance in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

According to prosecutors, Bogucki misused privileged information provided to him by HP. The company hired Barclays to execute a $9.5 billion foreign transaction based on the exchange rate at the time, in an acquisition of an unnamed United Kingdom company in September 2011. Bogucki and other Barclays employees assured HP its potentially market-moving transaction would remain confidential, according to prosecutors.

Instead, the defendant and other bank employees allegedly used the information to affect volatility in the market ahead of the transaction, in an attempt to depress the key value metric for foreign exchange options, prosecutors claim. The move cost HP millions of dollars, while earning Barclays millions in the process.

“Robert Bogucki and others allegedly not only betrayed his client's confidences, but also risked undermining public trust in the foreign exchange options market,” acting Assistant Attorney General John Cronan of the DOJ's Criminal Division said in a statement.

Bogucki's defense is led by Debevoise & Plimpton partner Sean Hecker. In a statement, Hecker declared his client's innocent.

“He tried hard to do right by HP while following the rules that governed market-makers in foreign exchange for many years,” Hecker said. “This action is nothing more than an unfair and misguided attempt to rewrite those long-standing rules.”

Bogucki is expected to be released on bail.