A former British trader has been sentenced to 19 months in jail in connection with alleged illegal insider trading and tipping offences, following the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) largest insider trading investigation to date.
The FCA said Thursday that Julian Rifat, a former senior execution trader and portfolio strategist at Moore Europe Capital Management LLC, was sentenced in court today to 19 months in prison, fined £100,000, ($187,670) and ordered to pay costs of £159,402 ($299,149).
Rifat is the third person to be sentenced for insider dealing offences that resulted from the FCA’s largest, most complex insider dealing investigation, known as Operation Tabernula. The FCA says that Rifat passed inside information that he obtained at work to an associate, Graeme Shelley, a broker at Novum Securities; who then traded for their joint benefit.
Shelley, Rifat, and another for trader, Paul Milsom, have all pled guilty to insider dealing in the case, the FCA reports.
“Mr Rifat was a very experienced market professional. He was privy to highly sensitive information at the heart of some of the largest transactions in the UK financial markets during the latter half of 2009. Mr Rifat’s behaviour exploited financial markets during a particularly challenging time just as they were taking steps to recover from the 2008 crisis. The smooth running of our financial markets requires market professionals to play by the rules – Mr Rifat knew the rules, but he abused them for his own benefit,” said Georgina Philippou, acting director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA.