London: 6 held for insider trading

Mar 24, 2010

6 held for insider trading

Deutsche, Moore Capital in UK under probe

Staturs forming the Gutenberg memorial stand in front of a Deutsche Bank building in Frankfurt on October 17, 2008. A trader at the London arm of New York-based Moore, along with employees of Deutsche and investment bank Exane, partly owned by BNP Paribas, were among group of six people arrested by British authorities in a probe that sent shockwaves through the City's financial district. -- PHOTO: AFP

LONDON - ONE of the biggest insider trading cases to hit London in years cast a shadow on Tuesday on European banks Deutsche Bank AG and BNP Paribas SA, as well as US hedge fund Moore Capital.

A trader at the London arm of New York-based Moore, along with employees of Deutsche and investment bank Exane, partly owned by BNP Paribas, were among group of six people arrested by British authorities in a probe that sent shockwaves through the City's financial district.

A spokesman for Moore, a US$14 billion hedge fund led by secretive US-born billionaire Louis Moore Bacon, said the firm is cooperating with the probe by the Financial Services Authority. Mr Bacon founded Moore in 1986. Dramatising the scope of the operation, the FSA said a squad of 143 officers raided 16 residential and business addresses in London on Tuesday, arresting the six men and seizing documents and computers.

So far, none of the six people arrested has been charged or formally identified by British authorities. And it is not clear just how big the investigation will become.

But the move by the FSA comes a few months after the hedge fund world in the United States was rocked by the big Galleon insider trading case, in which nearly two-dozen people were charged by US authorities. -- REUTERS