Ex-Dresdner Banker, Wife to Pay $2.5 Million to U.K. FSA
A former Dresdner Kleinwort banker and his wife must pay 1.6 million pounds ($2.5 million) to the U.K.’s finance regulator after they were found guilty of insider trading.
Christian Littlewood, who is serving a 40-month jail sentence after he pleaded guilty last year to eight counts of insider trading, and his wife, Angie, agreed with the Financial Services Authority to forfeit the amount they profited. They owe 800,000 pounds each, including proceeds from the crimes and legal costs, according to the settlement announced in a London criminal court today.
Littlewood admitted to passing information on confidential deals to his wife, who relayed it to an accomplice, Helmy Omar Sa’aid, who traded securities using the information. Angie Littlewood and Sa’aid invested about 5.5 million pounds over 10 years, the FSA said.
The FSA “took the view that the total benefit” by the three defendants in the case is 2.3 million pounds, which they planned to split three ways, Nicholas Dean, a lawyer for the regulator, told Judge Anthony Leonard.
“Each of them, Christian and Angie Littlewood, have assets that significantly exceed that figure,” Dean said.
The couple have six months in which to pay the FSA or face three years in prison, Leonard ruled. Dean said they have already begun selling some property and shouldn’t have a problem meeting the deadline.
Suspended Sentence
Angie Littlewood received a suspended 12-month sentence and isn’t serving a jail term. The judge ruled previously that she wouldn’t have committed insider trading without her husband’s involvement. Sa’aid was ordered to spend two years in jail.
Christian Littlewood’s sentence was the longest prison term for the crime in an FSA prosecution at the time. James Sanders, the founder of Blue Index Ltd., has since received a longer term, being sentenced in June to four years in prison for insider trading.
“The Littlewoods have not only received custodial sentences and seen their reputations and future careers destroyed, they have also paid a sum in confiscation significantly greater than the profit from the indicted trading,” Tracey McDermott, the FSA’s head of enforcement, said in a statement today.
Littlewood worked for Dresdner until 2008 and later took a job at investment bank Shore Capital Group Plc. He had started at Dresdner when he was 25 and later made as much as 400,000 pounds a year there.
The FSA and City of London police in March 2009 seized hundreds of thousands of documents and trading records from 150 bank accounts tied to the Littlewoods and Sa’aid.
Sa’aid was found the following year in Mayotte, a French island off the coast of Africa, and was extradited back to the U.K. to face the charges.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lindsay Fortado in London at lfortado@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Scinta at cscinta@bloomberg.net
Ex-Dresdner Banker, Wife to Pay $2.5 Million for Insider Trades
Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
Former Dresdner Kleinwort banker Christian Littlewood, right, admitted to passing information on confidential deals to his wife, Angie, left, who relayed it to an accomplice, Helmy Omar Sa’aid, who traded securities using the information.
Former Dresdner Kleinwort banker Christian Littlewood, right, admitted to passing information on confidential deals to his wife, Angie, left, who relayed it to an accomplice, Helmy Omar Sa’aid, who traded securities using the information. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
Rate this Page
Bloomberg moderates all comments. Comments that are abusive or off-topic will not be posted to the site. Excessively long comments may be moderated as well. Bloomberg cannot facilitate requests to remove comments or explain individual moderation decisions.