Ex-Dresdner financier found guilty of insider dealing

Along with his wife and her best friend, Christian Littlewood faces a prison sentence after they admitted netting 590,000

Christian Littlewood, a former corporate financier with Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, will tomorrow be sentenced along with his wife and her best friend after the three engaged in an eight-year insider-dealing conspiracy that netted them at least 590,000 in profits.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) today admitted it had come close to catching the plotters six years ago when suspicious trades by Littlewood's wife prompted officials to send her a letter asking her to explain her share dealings.

The Littlewoods, together with Helmy Sa'aid, will be sentenced at Southwark crown court tomorrow morning after all three pleaded guilty to multiple counts of insider dealing following a two-and-a-half-year investigation. They admitted to eight cases of conspiracy, netting gross profits of 590,000.

Investigators said cases on the indictment were just the most egregious and clear-cut examples of the conspirators' trading. In total they had identified 51 suspect trades which they believed had generated gross profits of about 1m.

The FSA came close to discovering the conspiracy in 2005 when a letter was sent to Siew-Yoon Lew the Singaporean maiden name under which Angie Littlewood traded which led her to stop using knowledge from her husband to trade shares. Instead, she passed information to Sa'aid and the trading profits were split three ways.

Angie Littlewood did not respond to the FSA's 2005 request for explanations and the regulator, which sends out many such letters, did not pursue the matter.

Asked why no further action was taken, FSA officials said they could not require her to explain her trading decisions. "We have hundreds of cases open at any one time."

The Littlewoods are both likely to face imprisonment despite having three children.

FSA investigators dismissed claims made in court this week by Christian Littl! ewood's counsel suggesting that he had not known the extent of his wife's and Sa'aid's trading. His counsel had told the court he just "lit the touch paper", and that the share dealings were kept from him.

But FSA officials pointed to evidence suggesting Christian had masterminded the operation. One text he sent to his wife read: "Sell enough shares to get money back but leave profit in shares". At that time she did not hold any shares.

Prosecuting counsel also told the court there was evidence that Christian Littlewood had passed inside information to a previous girlfriend in 1999 for the purposes of share dealing.

Another compelling piece of evidence discovered during a search two years ago of the Littlewoods' London home was a floppy disc in the garden shed. It showed the Littlewoods kept an extraordinarily detailed account of their financial dealings with each other.

Investigators who had initially been looking at trades from about 2005 to 2007, were then able to trace a pattern of insider dealing back to 2000.

At the same time a raid on two properties owned by Sa'aid revealed he had left the country. He was later traced to the French island of Mayotte off the coast of Madagascar, from where he was extradited.

Christian Littlewood was a financial adviser on a number of acquisitions of stock-market-listed companies, giving him access to market-sensitive information which meant he was officially classed as an "insider" under stock market rules.


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