Littlewood trio plead guilty to UK insider dealing
A former Dresdner banker, his Asian wife and a Singaporean man have pleaded guilty to eight counts of insider dealing in Britain, allowing the UK regulator to claim its latest victory in a crackdown on market abuse.
January 10, 2011 / 22:50 IST
A former Dresdner banker, his Asian wife and a Singaporean man have pleaded guilty to eight counts of insider dealing in Britain, allowing the UK regulator to claim its latest victory in a crackdown on market abuse.
Helmy Omar Sa'aid, 34, dressed casually in a zipped-up beige woollen cardigan, stood in a British dock on Monday to plead guilty to being the third member of a nine-year insider dealing scam that involved British banker Christian Littlewood and his Singaporean wife Angie.The Littlewood couple, who were arrested last March, had already pleaded guilty. But the court imposed reporting restrictions on the so-called "sweethearts in crime" plea so as not to prejudice the trial of "family friend" Sa'aid.Sa'aid, who has been in jail since last March and who, according to his lawyer, has been suffering from mental and other health problems such as memory lapses, delayed proceedings by holing up on the French Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean.In a move that underlines its determination to crack down on market abuse that remains rife in Britain, the Financial Services Authority secured its first extradition of a suspect from abroad to face criminal charges here.Littlewood, who once worked for Dresdner Kleinwort -- now part of Germany's Commerzbank -- his wife and Sa'aid were initially charged with 13 counts of insider dealing and one count of conspiracy to commit insider dealing in London-listed shares over eight years.The three are alleged to have made around 590,000 pounds (USD 917,100) profit by trading illegally in takeovers candidates such as water group South Staffordshire Plc, Irish energy firm Viridian Group, UK motor insurance group Highway Insurance and utilities group Bristol Water between 2000 and 2008.The Littlewood couple were not in court on Monday but are expected to be sentenced alongside Sa'aid in early February. The FSA is calling for a fine of up to 2.0 mn pounds (USD 3.11 mn), while jail sentences for insider dealing can run up to seven years -- although the longest sentence handed down by a UK court to date has been 21 months.Littlewood instigatorLittlewood and his wife, also known as Siew Yoon Lew and Angie Lew, originally pleaded guilty last October.During the period in question, Littlewood spent the bulk of his time at Dresdner, advising on mid-market deals between 2001 and 2007. He then moved briefly to now defunct property conglomerate Dawnay Day before landing a job at brokerage Shore Capital in September 2008 until April 2009.He is expected to face the toughest sanctions as the insider of the trio.The FSA, blamed for failing to effectively curb an industry blamed for spawning the credit crisis, has pledged to come down hard on market abuse that its own data shows remains a possibility in roughly one third of all UK takeovers.The regulator said the Littlewood case helped prove that financial rogues should no longer assume that using privileged and confidential information about companies to feather their nests was only a crime if they got caught."It seems that the penny is beginning to drop," said FSA enforcement and financial crime head Margaret Cole. "These guilty pleas show that our strategy of a tough approach to insider dealing -- and, in particular, demonstrating that we are prepared to fight difficult criminal prosecutions to trial -- is paying off."Insider dealing, which was only outlawed in Britain in 1980, is notoriously painstaking and time-consuming to prove and the FSA only started using its criminal powers in earnest in 2008 to prosecute the offence.The FSA is prosecuting 12 other individuals for the crime. Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
