former analyst at Evolution Securities Ltd., a London-based investment bank, denied claims that he passed inside information to a friend who went on to make at least 75,000 pounds ($123,000) from spread bets.
Robin Chhabra, 38, said yesterday he wasn’t in possession of inside information on E-Bookers Plc and Eidos Plc, two companies for which Evolution was the corporate broker, when he called his friend Sameer Patel in 2004. Even if he was, Chhabra said, he wouldn’t have divulged the information. The men are fighting a market-abuse case filed by the Financial Services Authority, which is seeking to ban and fine them.
The FSA’s case “makes no sense to me,” Chhabra told Guy Philipps, the FSA’s attorney, in cross-examination at a London tribunal yesterday. “Why would I distribute RINGA repeatedly and leave myself exposed?” said Chhabra, referring to relevant information not generally available, or inside information.The FSA is trying to stamp out insider trading after criticism from lawmakers, and it has pledged to bring more criminal insider-dealing cases. The FSA’s second criminal prosecution of the crime is being heard by a jury this week. Suspicious trades occurred before 29.3 percent of announcements last year, up from 28.7 percent in 2007, according to FSA data. Chhabra, who left Evolution in 2006 to become a director at Inspired Gaming Group Plc, and Patel had been close friends since attending the London School of Economics and Political Science together. They were best men at each other’s wedding, Chhabra told the tribunal yesterday. They spoke daily, he said.

Patel was an analyst at General Motors Asset Management and a “prolific” spread-better, using IG Index Ltd., according to the FSA. In the period under investigation, he made 55 spread bets with IG, 26 of which were on clients of Evolution, Jason Mansell, Chhabra’s attorney, told the tribunal two days ago.