Tryg, Carnegie Reported to Danish Police for Insider Trading

Tryg A/S, Denmark’s biggest insurance company, was reported to the police for leaking information to Carnegie Bank A/S that led to illegal insider trading, the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority said.

Tryg’s investor relations department told Carnegie in April 2010 that it would soon publish an announcement because of “uncertainty in the market,” the Copenhagen-based FSA said today in an e-mail. Tryg denied wrongdoing and said it would defend itself in courts. Carnegie accepted to pay a fine.

After the April 2010 correspondence with Tryg, Carnegie forwarded the information to its clients and traded shares in the insurance company, the FSA said. The day after, Ballerup, Denmark-based Tryg published a statement saying it would record extraordinary losses of about 700 million kroner ($125 million).

“We do not agree with the view of the Danish FSA,” Troels Rasmussen, a spokesman at Tryg, said in an e-mail reply to questions. “Therefore, we believe that - if necessary - the question will have to be settled by the courts. We have no further comments.”

The FSA said it hadn’t disclosed the alleged leak earlier to protect the investigation. It was both illegal for Tryg to inform Carnegie in advance of the announcement and for the bank to forward the information to its clients, the FSA said.

Carnegie Bank, which is a unit of Stockholm-based D. Carnegie & Co AB, said it agreed with public prosecutors to pay a 100,000-krone fine to close the case.

“Having considered the resource consumption implied in taking the case to court, Carnegie Bank A/S has accepted to pay the fine,” it said in a statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christian Wienberg in Copenhagen at cwienberg@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Angela Cullen at acullen8@bloomberg.net