Six convicted in FSA insider dealing ring prosecution led by Michael Bowes QC

Michael Bowes QC led the prosecution team in a case brought by the FSA which resulted in six men being convicted of participating in an insider dealing ring that profited from confidential information stolen from the print rooms of two of the City’s biggest investment banks, JP Morgan Cazenove and UBS. In the FSA’s longest and most complex prosecution to date, the men were convicted of insider trading offences between 2006 and 2008 following a four-and-a-half month trial at Southwark Crown Court. The court found they made profits of £732,000. A seventh man was acquitted. The FSA on Monday called the insider dealing ring a “sophisticated and complex attempt to deal on inside information over a long period”.

The case is notable for the FSA, which had previously secured 14 convictions for insider trading, because of the numbers of defendants which it was prosecuting in a single criminal trial.

It also marks the first time the FSA has prosecuted an insider trading case where price sensitive information has been stolen from print facilities – although a number of similar cases have been brought to trial in the US. The FSA examined hundreds of trading accounts and telephone records to build a picture of the contacts between those in the insider dealing ring.

The six defendants will be sentenced on Friday 27 July.

News 23 Jul, 2012