Analyst accused of ‘using home-working rules' to make almost £1m from insider trading
An analyst has been accused of using working-from-home rules to make nearly £1 million from insider trading.
Redinel Korfuzi, 37, a former Janus Henderson research analyst, denies money laundering and conspiracy to commit insider dealing.
His sister Oerta Korfuzi, 36, Rogerio de Acquini, 63, and Dema Almeziad, 40, also stand accused.
Tom Forster, prosecuting for the Financial Conduct Authority, told the court that working from home allowed Mr Korfuzi to run the scheme from the Marylebone flat he shared with his sister.
Mr Forster claimed the defendants took advantage of the 'cloak afforded by national-lockdown restrictions' to hatch their plan to carry out insider trading between January 2019 and March 2021.
They are said to have netted £963,000 in relation to 11 companies' shares including Daimler, Jet2 and THG and Russian tech firm Mail.ru, now known as VK. Mr Korfuzi is accused of misusing confidential information on these companies.
Jamie Ross, who worked with Mr Korfuzi at Janus Henderson on European equities, told the court that company systems could be accessed remotely on personal desktops through a platform called Citrus.
'I used the Citrus platform from my own desktop device at home, and I think that Mr Korfuzi did the same', he said. 'Communication was one of the big challenges,' according to Mr Ross, who said he mostly spoke to Mr Korfuzi on WhatsApp.
'When you are quite literally beside each other [at the office] you discuss investments and potential investments routinely,' Mr Ross added. 'Once you're separated and [both working from home], those discussions [are] migrated to WhatsApp and to phone conversations, and to a certain extent to email or even instant messaging.'
'I would have expected him to drop it and move on'
The fund manager was then taken through a list of the potential transactions through which Korfuzi is said to have profited through confidential information.
Asked about a transaction involving Mail.ru, a personal email service, between September 22 and October 2, 2020, Mr Ross said he had 'initial interest' in the transaction but 'would have quickly lost that interest when I found out the aim of the company'.
Mr Forster asked: 'In terms of Mr Korfuzi's interest, would you have expected him to show much interest in this, in your view of it?'
Mr Ross replied: 'It would have been very clear to him this was not something I would have sanctioned, and was an investment I would not have been interested in.'
The prosecutor then asked Mr Ross about a transaction involving Jet2, between February 4 and February 12, 2021. Mr Ross replied that Janus Henderson did not have a position on the package holiday company, adding that the proposed transaction would not have interested him at all.
'What would you have expected him to have done?', Mr Forster asked.
'Drop it, move on - carry on with other research work he was conducting,' Mr Ross replied.
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