At this time two years ago--in February 2009--the UK's Financial Services Authority had never in its history obtained a criminal conviction for insider trading. Not a single one since gaining criminal authority in 2001. That finally changed on March 27, 2009, when an FSA prosecution resulted in the conviction of Christopher McQuoid, former general counsel of TTP Communications, and his father-in-law, James Melbourne. Both men were found guilty on one count of insider dealing by the Southwark Crown Court.

I tried to keep track of the subsequent convictions for a while as they rolled in, but with the FSA quite publicly trying to inspire "fright" and distance itself from its traditional "light touch" enforcement, the stream of criminal convictions and pending prosecutions for insider trading in the UK eventually became too steady and routine to keep track of anymore.

On January 21, 2011, Reuters reported that the 27-month sentence (half of which was suspended) imposed upon manufacturing manager Neil Rollins for insider trading in shares of his employer, PM Onboard Ltd, was the longest insider trading sentence issued to date. The article noted that the FSA has now secured 10 criminal convictions, with 12 trials now pending.

Rollins' "record" 27-month sentence stood for less than two weeks, as today Christian Littlewood, a former Dresdner Kleinwort investment banker, was sentenced to 40 months in prison for his role in an insider trading scheme that allegedly went on for nearly a decade.

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