Former Lonsec Stockbroking head convicted for insider trading
Former Lonsec Stockbroking Services managing director Norman John Graham has been convicted on two charges of insider trading and fined $30,000.
Graham had entered a guilty plea in the Melbourne Magistrates Court in mid-March, stemming from charges first brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
ASIC said the charges related to an order Graham placed on 26 February, 2010, to sell a total of 200,000 shares of Clean Seas Tuna Ltd across two client accounts of the stockbroking arm of Lonsec. At the time of the transaction Graham was managing director of the firm.
ASIC stated that at the time that Graham sold the shares on the two client accounts he knew that Clean Seas Tuna had suffered a financial loss of more than $10 million for the six months to December 2010. The loss was to be announced to the market on 26 February, 2010 with Graham aware that Southern Bluefin Tuna fingerlings had died.
ASIC said Graham's trading was prior to the release of Clean Seas Tuna's half-year results on 26 February, 2010, in which it announced the loss of $14.2 million and the tuna stock — after which time Clean Seas Tuna's share price fell substantially.
The case was prosecuted by The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions in the Magistrates' Court of Victoria in Melbourne, where Graham was initially charged with 14 counts of insider trading.
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