FSA Insider Dealing Arrests Include JPMorgan Cazenove, UBS

Tom Burroughes

30 July 2008

The UK financial regulator said it has arrested eight individuals in connection with an investigation into insider dealing rings in London and the Southeast of England.

In an operation involving 40 staff from the Financial Services Authority as well as offices from the City of London Police, the arrests and search warrants were carried out on Tuesday.

Media reports said that arrests included staff at UBS and JPMorgan Cazenove. When WealthBriefing called the FSA for details about the arrests and the identities of those involved, the FSA declined to give names or the companies the individuals worked for.

A report in the Financial Times said the FSA suspected that the alleged ring traded on price sensitive information contained in deal announcements produced at one or both of the banks' printing plants but which had yet to be made public.

"We can confirm that a junior member of UBS's support staff in London has been arrested and has been suspended from work while the FSA carries out its investigation," UBS said in a statement. It declined to give further details on the matter in response to a call by WealthBriefing.

JPMorgan Cazenove was quoted by media reports as saying that that a sub-contractor who worked at the bank but was employed by another company was one of the people arrested. It did not immediately return calls from WealthBriefing in asking for possible further details.

Yesterday's raids came less than a week after the agency charged a veteran former Cazenove partner with a dozen counts of insider dealing between 2003 and 2005.

All eight people arrested are men aged between 27 and 48, media reports said. The FSA would not confirm their names, employers or job titles, nor the amount of profits thought to be at stake.