Ex-Goldman Analyst, Brother Charged in Insider-Trading Case

Jonathan Browning

(Bloomberg) -- A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst and his brother, a lawyer at a top London law firm, were charged with insider trading by U.K. financial prosecutors.

The pair, Mohammed Zina and Suhail Zina, were charged over trading in six stocks, the Financial Conduct Authority said in a statement Tuesday. Suhail Zina was a junior solicitor at Clifford Chance.

Mohammed Zina, 32, who worked as an analyst at the bank’s unit that checks for business conflicts, pleaded not guilty at a London court, an FCA spokeswoman said. He left Goldman Sachs in 2018. Suhail, 33, left Clifford Chance the same year.

The total profit from the alleged trading by the brothers was 142,000 pounds ($198,000), the FCA said. The companies included ARM Holdings Plc, Alternative Networks Plc and Punch Taverns Plc.

Court Hearing

The brothers appeared at a London court Tuesday morning, where the case was transferred to a higher tribunal for a plea hearing on March 16. Lawyers for the men declined to immediately comment.

The FCA also brought fraud charges relating to three personal loans obtained from Tesco Bank, totaling 95,000 pounds. The loans were said to be for funding home improvements, but were instead used to fund the alleged insider dealing, according to the regulator.

Goldman Sachs said in a statement that it cooperated with the FCA’s probe and that the firm itself wasn’t under investigation. A spokesman for Clifford Chance declined to comment.

The charges are the FCA’s first against an employee at an investment bank since the conviction of a former UBS Group AG compliance officer and a day trader in 2019.

(Updates with Goldman Sachs statement in seventh paragraph.)

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