Investment banking: banker, wife, friend plead guilty to insider dealing
Christian Littlewood, a senior investment banker and former UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) Approved Person, his wife Angie Littlewood (also known as Siew Yoon Lew and Angie Lew) and a friend Helmy Omar Sa’aid have pleaded guilty to 8 counts of insider dealing contrary to section 52 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993. They are alleged to havme made approximately GBP590,000 profit from the trades.
The case is important not for the facts of the insider dealing (though they are interesting in themselves) but because this was the first time that the FSA, as an enforcement agency, had used a European Arrest Warrant to bring a wanted person back to the UK to face trial.
The offences relate to trading in a number of different London Stock Exchange and AIM listed shares between 2000 and 2008 and were only brought to an end when the City of London Police working with FSA staff arrested the Littlewoods in March 2009.
The third defendant Helmy Omar Sa'aid was returned to the UK in March 2010 following the execution of a European Arrest Warrant in Mayotte, one of the Comoros Islands.
The full sentencing and confiscation hearing will take place in the week commencing 31 January.
Download PDF version of this page