London trader and wife jailed for insider dealing - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - A London trader who funded a lavish lifestyle from illegal share dealing was jailed for four years - and his wife for 10 months - in an insider dealing case pursued by prosecutors on both sides of the Atlantic.
James Sanders, a director of now-defunct UK brokerage Blue Index, his wife Miranda and James Swallow, a Blue Index co-director, last month pleaded guilty to 18 counts of insider dealing between October 2006 and February 2008.
The couple - in their thirties - held hands in the dock, and when a woman in the gallery burst into tears on Miranda's sentencing, Miranda turned and smiled encouragingly at her.
The four years meted out to James Sanders constitutes the longest jail sentence for insider trading to date in the UK. Swallow was handed a 10-month jail sentence.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA), which brought the UK prosecution, said the three scooped almost 2.0 million pounds in profits from illegal share dealings, while Blue Index clients made around 10.2 million.
A consummate trader, James Sanders told a newspaper in 2008 his mantra was: "Buy at the point of maximum fear" after snapping up a 5 million pound property in London's exclusive Kensington district for a 22 percent discount at the height of the credit crunch.
Blue Index was a specialist brokerage of contracts for differences (CFD), a tax-efficient trade that allows dealers to speculate on short-term price fluctuations of assets such as stocks by buying a percentage of their value, or "margin".
The FSA, which worked alongside U.S. regulators and prosecutors to secure the convictions, said the insider in the case was Miranda's brother-in-law Arnold McClellan, a senior partner at the San Francisco branch of accounting firm Deloitte.
The FSA alleged that either Miranda's sister Annabel McClellan or her husband Arnold leaked privileged, price-sensitive information to the British couple about U.S. securities listed on the New York stock exchange or the technology heavy Nasdaq index.
James Sanders then disclosed information to James Swallow and encouraged Blue Index clients to trade on the basis of that inside information. That would have boosted company profits and possibly dividends and bonuses.
Annabel McClellan has already been jailed for 11 months without parole and fined $1.0 million after being pursued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Department of Justice (DoJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). No charges have been brought against Arnold McClellan.
($1 = 0.6447 British pounds)
(Editing by Douwe Miedema and Jon Loades-Carter)
London's take on Stonehenge for Summer Solstice - ITN
The iconic megaliths of Stonehenge have been recreated in central London ahead of the Summer Solstice on Wednesday evening.
Citihenge is a giant sculpture made from scrap cars and, unlike its neolithic name-sake, it is surrounded by urban landmarks rather than rural tranquility.
Each of the six, three-car henges is five metres wide and more than five metres high, and the whole thing weighs 36 tonnes.
It was designed by sculptor Tommy Gun over a three-month period.
He said: "It is made entirely from old car parts, which taps into my own childhood growing up on a farm where I used to love building and creating things with pieces of discarded machinery."
Citihenge will remain in London for two days before touring the UK, appearing at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex from June 28 to July 1.
London 2012: Man charged with Olympic ticket fraud - BBC News
A 44-year old man from Catford in London has been charged with two counts of fraud over the sale of Olympic tickets, Scotland Yard has said.
Christakis Ioannou will also face charges of money laundering and the illegal sale of Olympic tickets when he appears at West London Magistrates' Court on 4 July.
Meanwhile a 39-year old man has been arrested on suspicion of the unauthorised sale of Olympic tickets.
He is in custody in Leicester.
That arrest was made on Tuesday morning by officers from the Metropolitan Police's Operation Podium - its team investigating ticket fraud and touting connected to the London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
It was a result of ongoing enquiries into the unauthorised sale of Olympic and Paralympic tickets as part of a corporate hospitality package, Scotland Yard added.
A search warrant was executed at a business address in central Leicester.
The Operation Podium team also work to combat scams involving non-existent hotel rooms and companies being duped into buying luxury goods which never turn up.
As of 14 June, 186 people have been arrested by officers working for the operation.
In March, eight people were charged in connection with a £2.3m fraud against the Olympic Delivery Authority.
Try Ascot - in London - The Sun
A London restaurant is running its very own day at the races on Sunday June 23.
The Plough Bar and Kitchen in Clapham, will show all the races on a big screen, from 2.30-5.30pm
So dust off your best suit, fasten your fascinators and jockey for a prime position to watch the dramatic climax, the Diamond Jubilee Stakes, through a pair of Veuve Clicquot sunglasses - free with every bottle of bubbly bought.
Call 020 7585 1844, email ploughevents@youngs.co.uk, or see theploughstjohnshill.co.uk.
ADD mystery to a camping trip by booking one of the new Wild Comfort mobile camping sites in Devon – whose locations are kept secret.
The luxury sites pop up at various locations in the South Hams and exact addresses are only given when booking.
But they are all close to beaches and rivers, the wilds of Dartmoor and the charming towns of Totnes, Kingsbridge, Dartmouth and Salcombe.
They are made up of five sleeping tents, one living room tent, kitchen and hot showers – and you can ask for the kitchen to be stocked on arrival. Prices are from £650 for eight people for one week with short breaks also available from £500. See oneoffplaces.co.uk.
BRITS driving abroad show a worrying lack of regard for road safety.
Twenty-seven per cent are less concerned about breaking speed limits, and 18 per cent take drink-driving less seriously than at home, according to an AXA poll.
And only 49 per cent slap a GB sticker on their vehicle abroad, even though it is required.
IF you need vaccines when abroad. it pays to shop around for the best deal.
There were some large differences in prices at clinics nationwide, when
the appointment and administration fees were added in, research by Airport Parking & Hotels (APH.com) found.
Across the seven clinics surveyed, Doctor Today was the dearest – charging £105 for the cholera inoculation and £63 for rabies.
In contrast, Well-Travelled Clinics charges £30.95 and £61.99 respectively.
The Hospital for Tropical Diseases had the cheapest rabies vaccine of those polled, at just £42.
For a full list of costs see aph.com/travelvaccines.
VISITORS to London will soon be able to get wi-fi while on the Tube.
London Underground have teamed up with Virgin Media to get 120 stations connected by the end of the year.
The first batch of stations are set to get online in July and include Oxford Circus, Camden Town, London Bridge and King’s Cross.
DESPITE the best efforts of the various UK tourist boards this year, it seems as though the days of the staycation could be over.
Research by M&S Money reveals staying in the UK can be 25 per cent more expensive than going abroad.
The cost of a week in London, for those wanting to celebrate the Jubilee and the Olympics in the capital, will set Brits back £1,631, compared with an average £1,298 for a sunny holiday overseas.
Stats from online travel agent On The Beach back up the findings – they have seen a massive increase in bookings for this summer with Spain again leading the way.
Tenerife topped the list of destinations with a year-on-year boost in bookings of 60 per cent, closely followed by Majorca which has increased by 90 per cent.
With hoteliers in Greece slashing prices by some 15 per cent and the low rate of the euro, bookings to the crisis-torn country have risen by 55 per cent. Alistair Daly, marketing director at On The Beach said: “With Britain focusing on the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics the UK will be saturated with tourists.
“Our data shows that Brits have chosen to avoid these crowds and take advantage of the reduction on family holidays and guarantee themselves a bit of sun.
“Staycations have taken a back seat in 2012.”
A NEW travel tribe is on the rise – OATs, or Old Age Travellers.
Gatwick Airport polled 1,000 travellers over the age of 70 and found 56 per cent were travelling more now than they did when they were younger.
The airport has now launched a search to find Britain’s oldest traveller.
If you think that’s you, or want to nominate someone, email proof of date of birth, a photo and a line about a favourite travel experience to ukoldesttraveller@gatwick-airport.com before June 29.
LONDON 2012: Jay-Z, Rihanna to Perform at Olympic Arts Festival - Hollywood Reporter
Musical stars, including Jay-Z, Rihanna, David Guetta and Elton John, films from the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and Mike Leigh and art from Yoko Ono and others will all be part of the London 2012 Festival, a cultural celebration across Britain tied to the Summer Olympics that kicks off on Thursday.
The festival, which runs through Sept. 9, includes 12,000 events and performances across the country in celebration of the Summer and Paralympic Games. Organizers say there will be 10 million tickets for free and paid-for events in such fields as film, music, theater, fashion, dance and art. The festival's web site describes it as "the biggest festival the U.K. has ever seen."
With a budget of around £55 million ($86 million), the celebration is seen as a chance to showcase Britain's cultural heritage and put the country in the Olympic spirit.
The festival is the finale of the so-called Cultural Olympiad that was started in 2008 to inspire creativity in all forms, especially among young people. According to organizers, 18 million people have taken part so far.
Ruth Mackenzie, director of the London 2012 Festival in a statement called the event "a once-in-a-lifetime cultural experience to match the once-in-a-lifetime visit of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to the U.K."
One of the most star-studded events of the London 2012 Festival will be a BBC Radio 1 show that the station says will be its "biggest-ever free live music event." The lineup for the June 23 and 24 extravaganza that will feature six stages in the Hackney Marshes area of East London includes Jay-Z, Rihanna, Flo Rida, David Guetta, Jessie J, Lana del Rey, Leona Lewis, Tinie Tempah, Plan B, Florence and the Machine, Dappy, Jack White and more.
The music event is part of BBC Radio 1's Hackney Weekend 2012 that it has organized in partnership with London 2012 Festival and the Hackney Council. Around 100,000 people are expected at the music gathering.
Among other London 2012 Festival events, Peace One Day, an organization dedicated to the idea of having one day a year free of conflict, will have an opening night concert in Northern Ireland co-produced by Jude Law who is an ambassador for the organization.
The group also will have a big concert in September led by Elton John at Wembley Arena in London. It will mark the closing of the London 2012 Festival. Further artists will be announced over the coming weeks.
The London 2012 Festival kicks off Thursday with a fireworks display by Lake Windermere in northwest England and a big open-air concert with Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel leading the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela at Scotland's Stirling Castle.
Also outdoor sites with screens "across the country will show festival films to entertain thousands of people throughout the day," according to the festival web site. Films include shorts and excerpts from Royal Shakespeare Company shows. Plus, the opening day will see the unveiling of Yoko Ono’s worldwide anti-violence initiative "Imagine Peace" on the outdoor screens.
One much-buzzed about offer of the festival is a life-sized replica of Stonehenge called "Sacrilege" that is being compared to a bouncy castle and will travel the U.K.
Among the festival's film events are screenings of British filmmaker Mike Leigh's A Running Jump, described as "a film reflecting on sport in everyday life – not to mention taxis and dodgy second-hand cars." The first screening will be at London's Hackney Picturehouse on June 25.
Hitchcock will also be part of the Olympics celebrations. The Genius of Hitchcock will present classics from the Hitchcock vault outdoors at the British Museum.
Among comedy events, Australian comedian and musician Tim Minchin will bring his brand of musical comedy to a show, and "Ha Ha Hackney" will bring LGBT comics to the Hackney Empire to celebrate 66 years of comedy between the 1948 and the 2012 Olympic Games.
Leading British fashion designers and artists will also collaborate to champion London 2012 next month in an event called Britain Creates 2012: Fashion + Art Collusion.
Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com
Twitter: @georgszalai
London 2012: Diagnosis boost for Sanya Richards-Ross - BBC News
Five years ago, Sanya Richards-Ross emerged from the US national trials beaten, confused and diagnosed.
The reigning Female World Athlete of the Year, Richards-Ross went to Indianapolis as most experts' first name on the American team sheet for the 2007 World Championships. But the US trials are notoriously tense, and favourites do falter, particularly when they are not in peak condition.
That was certainly the case for Richards-Ross. What was unusual - and frightening for the Jamaican-born sprinter herself - was the nature of her problem.
This was no muscle strain, the world's best 400m runner was covered in skin lesions, her joints ached and the inside of her mouth was so ulcerated that it hurt to drink water. To make matters worse, a deep fatigue set in as she progressed from the qualifying round to semi-final to final.
Richards-Ross on Ohuruogu
I think it's a rivalry. Christine Ohuruogu won the big one. If I won 10 and she's won one, she's won the one that matters the most - I think that carries enough weight to make it a rivalry. She's a very talented athlete and shows up when it counts. That puts a lot of pressure on everybody else in the field as you never know what race she's going to come with. I'm looking forward to racing her again and I know she's looking forward to it too - it will be great for the fans.
That she managed to come fourth, missing qualification for the individual event by one place, is a testament to her consistency over the one-lap distance. But Richards-Ross could not wait to get out of the trials and find out why she was afflicted with these mysterious symptoms.
A new doctor provided the answer, treatment started and things improved. As a result, she was able to take her place in the 4x400m team at the Worlds, adding a second relay gold to the one claimed as an 18-year-old in 2003.
Richards-Ross was running fast again but she was now officially a Behcets syndrome sufferer.
A rare, chronic disease that involves the inflammation of blood vessels all over the body, Behcets can cause serious skin problems, arthritis and meningitis: it can also affect memory, speech and movement.
Richards-Ross never made much of her struggles with it - she wore long sleeves and body make-up when the lesions appeared - but she would occasionally be too tired to train.
Despite this, she did not want to use the condition as an excuse for her failures to turn season-long domination of the 400m into individual gold medals at the year's biggest championships: those 2007 Worlds, the 2008 Olympics and again at the Worlds in 2011.
"As an athlete you never want to blame anything other than saying you didn't execute well on that day," the 27-year-old told me in Dallas last month.
"But if there was ever a time when it affected my performance it was at (the trials) in 2007, I just didn't feel right. I got worse from round to round and I left straight after to see a doctor because I felt so bad. That's when I got diagnosed.
"But after that I felt I had it pretty much under control. There might have been a few times when I couldn't prepare as well as I might have but for the most part it was just not executing on the day, the pressure, or wanting it too badly. I blame those things more than the disease."
There was one other reason why Richards-Ross was reluctant to blame Behcets: she did not believe she really had it.
As a leading light in track and field, and being married to NFL star Aaron Ross, Richards-Ross was arguably the most famous American afflicted with the disease, so she was often approached by other sufferers.
"A lot of people with Behcets reached out to me, and when we talked about our symptoms I felt I didn't have what they had," she explained.
"And the more research I did, the more I thought 'this can't be right, it doesn't fit'.
"So I kept searching until this year I started working with a new doctor, and he doesn't think I have it.
"He thinks it's a treatable skin disease and I've been doing a lot better. I don't get the fatigue or joint pains nearly as much and the lesions and ulcers are better too.
"I'm excited that it's behind me, but it was definitely a tough time."
To say Richards-Ross is "doing a lot better" on the track is hard to measure until we see how she deals with the extra demands that a major championship places on body and mind. The 27-year-old has been churning out world-leading times since 2005 but only had one individual gold medal to show for it - the 2009 Worlds - before this season.
And while few current athletes have won so many one-off races on the annual circuit, it is defeats to the likes of Bahamas' Tonique Williams-Darling at the 2005 Worlds, Britain's Christine Ohuruogu at the 2008 Olympics and last year's seventh-place finish in Daegu that stand out.
This year's Richards-Ross does look different, though.
Once again, she tops the time charts for 400m, but she is also quickest over 200m, setting a personal best of 22.09 in New York earlier this month.
And she added another individual gold medal to her tally in March, winning the 400m at the World Indoors. This revealed a new approach to a championship season, as she had not even run an indoor 400m for the previous six campaigns.
So, one of sport's most dominant athletes looks set, once more, to translate her undeniable class into something truly memorable. She will return to the US national trials on Sunday, once again looking to establish herself as the best in the world this summer. This time, however, she is healthy.
The women's 400m race at London 2012 could be the most delayed coronation in recent track and field history.
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