A former Dresdner banker has been jailed for three years and four months for running an eight-year UK insider dealing scam, a record victory for Britain's much-criticised banks regulator in its battle against cheats.
Christian Littlewood, who had pleaded guilty to eight counts of insider dealing but blamed his wife Angie and her Singaporean friend Helmy Omar Sa'aid for the extent of the illegal trading, is the most senior banker to be caught while still working by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).
The FSA, much criticised for its "light touch" approach to regulation, has since 2008 pursued a more aggressive strategy in going after trading cheats. "Those rogue traders that let down the honest, discreet majority must be made to pay," Judge Anthony Leonard said in a statement released by the regulator after the judgement on Wednesday. Angie Littlewood, who teamed up with Sa'aid and used her husband's price-sensitive tip-offs to trade 2.15 million pounds ($3.4 million) worth of shares - partly under her Singaporean maiden name Siew Yoon Lew - was handed a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, by a London court on Wednesday.
Leonard dismissed 37-year-old Littlewood's argument he had only authorised 20,000 pounds of insider dealing per stock. Angie will be electronically tagged for the first three months of her suspended sentence and will be under curfew at her home between 8am and 7pm.
The judge said Angie had been under her husband's influence, was already suffering from "moderate depression and possible alcoholism" and was a good mother to her three young children. "In my judgement, you did as you were told to do by your husband," he said.
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