A former broker at the Queen’s stockbroker Cazenove has been handed a 21-month prison sentence for insider dealing in the shares of three UK companies. Malcolm Calvert, an equities marketmaker, was yesterday found guilty of five counts of insider dealing after making £103,883 profit. Passing sentence today, Judge Testar said Calvert had “clear undersanding of the seriousness of what he was doing” and committed his offences “deliberately not recklessly”, the Times reports.
Calvert was found guilty of obtaining confidential information on upcoming takeovers and instructing a friend, Bertie Hatcher, to buy shares. After the deals were announced, the shares soared in value and Hatcher sold them at a £104,000 profit. Calvert picked up his profits in cash envelopes Hatcher left with a bookmaker at a racetrack. Calvert was cleared of insider dealing charges on a further seven counts relating to Hatcher’s share purchases in HP Bulmer, Macdonald Hotels and RAC.
The case, heard at Southwark Crown Court, marks the third successful insider dealing prosecution brought by the FSA.
Margaret Cole, the FSA’s director of enforcement, says: “Our markets operate on honesty and trust and insider dealing makes a mockery of both these values.
“[This] sentence shows we will not tolerate insider dealing and will take the strongest action against anybody found to be involved in it.”
The confiscation and costs hearing will take place on 23 April 2010.
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