Enforcement: UK's FSA succeeds in criminal prosecution for market abuse and money laundering
The argument is over, it appears. The UK's FSA has now succeeded in bringing to conclusion five criminal prosecutions, laying to rest any doubts that its powers do not include those. The latest case includes convictions for money laundering.
Neil Rollins, a senior manager of PM Onboard Limited, a waste industry company, became aware that the financial position of his employer was deteriorating. He and his wife held shares in PM Group plc, his company's parent. He sold his shareholding, realising some GBP173,500 and encouraged his wife to sell her shares, too. They sold for approx 17,000.
Later (the FSA does not say how much later) the Group announced its figures and its share price fell 17%.
The FSA says that Rollins’s loss avoided was approximately GBP45,000 as calculated at the end of the first day after PM Group plc made an announcement informing the market of its worsening financial position. The loss avoided increased to GBP68,000 by the second day after the announcement.
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Louisa Rollins’s share sale proceeds were approximately GBP17,000. On the same basis above, the loss avoided was approximately GBP3,000 increasing to GBP7,000 by the second day after the announcement.
When an investigation was launched by the FSA, Rollins tried to hide the money in accounts he opened in his father's name. That was the basis of the laundering conviction.
Sentencing and a confiscation hearing will be on 21 January 2011.
The FSA has fifteen more insider dealing cases in the pipeline.
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