An investment banker who tried to pin blame for a £2.15m insider dealing scam on his wife and her friend has been jailed in what a judge described as the “biggest prosecution for insider trading ever brought” in Britain.
Christian Littlewood, 37, who received an annual salary of more than £350,000 at Dresdner Kleinwort , has been jailed for three years and four months.
His Singaporean-born wife, Angie, received a suspended prison sentence. Her friend, Helmy Omar Sa’aid, who helped the couple in their eight years of insider trading, was sentenced to two years in prison and faces deportation.
All three had previously pleaded guilty to eight counts of insider trading in stocks such as Viridian Group and RCO Holdings after using price sensitive information supplied by Mr Littlewood in his role as a director at Dresdner and later at Shore Capital. The trio invested £2.15m in trades and netted £590,000 profits.
Mr Littlewood’s jail term is the longest imposed on a UK insider dealer and came as the Financial Services Authority intensified its prosecutions of City professionals suspected of wrongdoing.
Christian Littlewood, 37, who received an annual salary of more than £350,000 at Dresdner Kleinwort , has been jailed for three years and four months.
His Singaporean-born wife, Angie, received a suspended prison sentence. Her friend, Helmy Omar Sa’aid, who helped the couple in their eight years of insider trading, was sentenced to two years in prison and faces deportation.
All three had previously pleaded guilty to eight counts of insider trading in stocks such as Viridian Group and RCO Holdings after using price sensitive information supplied by Mr Littlewood in his role as a director at Dresdner and later at Shore Capital. The trio invested £2.15m in trades and netted £590,000 profits.
Mr Littlewood’s jail term is the longest imposed on a UK insider dealer and came as the Financial Services Authority intensified its prosecutions of City professionals suspected of wrongdoing.
