The UK's newly-aggressive Financial Services Authority (FSA) is pursuing another high-profile insider trading case, as reports emerged today that a partner at the London office of Dorsey & Whitney and a former partner of McDermott Will & Emery will be charged criminally next month with insider trading. Bloomberg reports that Andrew Rimmington, a corporate partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, and Michael Gerard McFall, an ex-corporate partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP, are the lawyers in question, along with Peter Andrew William King, the former financial director of Neutec Pharma Ltd. The prosecution relates to Novartis AG's 2006 takeover of Neutec, according to court documents.

According to Bloomberg, King and McFall face charges of insider dealing and disclosing non-public information, while Rimmington will only be charged with insider trading.

As discussed here, the FSA has in recent months begun to gain traction in its effort to gain respect as an aggressive regulator. This effort seemed to kick off in March, when the FSA’s chief executive, Hector Sants, stated that “there is a view that people are not frightened of the FSA. I can assure you this is a view I am determined to correct. People should be very frightened of the FSA.” The initial reaction in the UK appeared a lot of eye-rolling, but a series of high-profile insider trading cases, enforcement "swoops," and the FSA’s first-ever criminal prosecution on March 27 for insider dealing seem to have begun to change the FSA's reputation.