On August 20, Confiscation Orders (the Orders) totalling £1,534,000 were made against Christian Littlewood, a former Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein investment banker, and his wife Angie Littlewood. Press Release.
The couple used inside information obtained through his employment to facilitate the placing of trades in eight separate stocks just prior to announcements to the market and were convicted and sentenced for insider dealing in February 2011.
The confiscation regime under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) allows the court to assume that the proceeds of other trading that took place within the same period as the insider dealing represents the proceeds of crime. Both Mr and Mrs Littlewood have been ordered to pay £767,000, representing the benefit each obtained from insider dealing.
This is an example of the FSA’s increasingly tougher sanctions towards insider dealing. Tracey McDermott, director of enforcement and financial crime said “The Orders made today, coupled with the sentences previously imposed, should make it clear that insider dealing does not pay.”
