UK: The Inside Scoop: What Does Tabernula Tell Us About The Future Of Criminal Insider Dealing Enforcement In The UK?
The high-profile insider trading prosecution dubbed "Operation Tabernula", brought by the Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA"), has this month secured two further convictions. After a 12-week trial, Martyn Dodgson and Andrew Hind were found guilty at Southwark Crown Court on 9 May, and were handed prison sentences of 4.5 years and 3.5 years respectively. Three others who stood trial were acquitted.
The recent trial represents only part of the FCA's sprawling investigation spanning more than eight years and 10.5 terabytes of storage space, and costing an estimated Ј14 million. The FCA had already secured three guilty pleas in separate strands of the investigation.
The FCA has been quick to label this a significant coup, and a clear vindication of the extraordinary costs and manpower involved in the investigation. It is true that the 4.5-year sentence received by Dodgson is the largest ever handed down in a UK insider trading case. However, it falls noticeably short of the seven year maximum sentence, and even shorter of insider dealing sentences in the US. How, then, does the outcome in Tabernula compare to the FCA's previous successes?
