Insider trading penalty raised to jail time
Nicholas Glynatsis, 30, has been convicted of using inside information - gained while working in PricewaterhouseCoopers' tax and legal department - to trade financial products in numerous energy and resource companies between November 2009 and 2010.
He was convicted of using his knowledge of impending company takeovers to make gross profits of $50,826, for himself and his relatives. He invested a total of $371,507 to do so.
In December, Glynatsis was sentenced to two years' jail, to be served by way of community service. But that decision was overturned in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday.
Glynatsis has been resentenced to 21 months' jail, after an appeal from the Crown, and will be released from prison on December 11, 2013, pending good behaviour.
Justice Clifton Hoeben said no other sentence would "adequately reflect the seriousness of the offences".
Glynatsis started working with PwC in early 2007. Within two years he had become a senior consultant in the tax and legal department.
The position gave him access to records and files of PwC's clients and projects for which it had been asked to provide advice.
It also gave him exclusive use of a laptop with a program that gave him access to a record management system housing caches of files relating to PwC's clients.
According to court documents, Glynatsis viewed confidential documents that identified proposed transactions involving PwC clients such as corporate takeovers, and then traded in shares with derivative products called contracts for difference, or CFDs.
He set up a trading account with CMC Markets Asia Pacific in his own name and three separate accounts held by his relatives.
The trades took place between November 2009 and 2010, and he resigned from the company in June 2011 after his offences were detected.
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A former PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) tax consultant, Nicholas Glynatsis, used confidential PwC client information about impending corporate takeovers to trade financial products and make profits, leading to his conviction for insider trading.
Nicholas Glynatsis, a 30-year-old former senior consultant in PwC's tax and legal department, was convicted of using inside information obtained at PwC to trade in shares and derivatives between November 2009 and 2010.
His role gave him access to PwC client records and projects, and he had exclusive use of a laptop with a program that accessed a record management system containing confidential files identifying proposed transactions.
He traded in shares using derivative products called contracts for difference (CFDs), operating an account with CMC Markets Asia Pacific and three accounts held by relatives.
According to the court, he invested a total of $371,507 and made gross profits of $50,826 for himself and relatives by trading on inside information.
Glynatsis was originally sentenced to two years' jail to be served by community service, but the NSW Supreme Court overturned that. After a Crown appeal he was resentenced to 21 months' jail and is due for release on December 11, 2013, pending good behaviour.
The trades took place between November 2009 and 2010, and Glynatsis resigned from PwC in June 2011 after his offences were detected.
The case shows insider trading can involve employees at major firms with access to confidential takeover information, that trading with inside information is illegal, and offenders can face criminal conviction and jail. Everyday investors should avoid using non-public information and be aware regulators and courts actively pursue breaches to protect market integrity.
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