Ex-hedge fund manager fined for insider trading

LONDON (Reuters) - A former hedge fund manager was fined 50,000 pounds for insider trading but escaped jail on Tuesday after agreeing to help Britain's Financial Services Authority (FSA) with its investigation into an unnamed associate.

Anjam Ahmad, who worked for London-based AKO Capital until last September, was sentenced to 10 months in prison suspended for two years and 300 hours of community work, as well as being fined, said the FSA, which has stepped up its crackdown on market abuse this year.

Ahmad escaped jail after agreeing to help the FSA in a probe into an associate after the watchdog for the first time used new powers granted to it in April.

"It is only because of the quite exceptional mitigating factors such as the swift and timely admissions to the FSA ... that saves you from immediate imprisonment today," said Judge Rivlin. Ahmad had used information about upcoming trades by AKO to plan, with his associate, trades in at least 19 securities, the FSA said.

Separately, Ahmad also agreed to pay to the FSA 131,000 pounds of profits he had made from directing trades towards one broker in exchange for cash, gift vouchers, gold, flights and hotel bookings. Last week British finance minister George Osborne announced plans to scrap the FSA, instead creating a new agency to crack down on white collar crime.

(Reporting by Laurence Fletcher; Editing by David Holmes)

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