Rogue trader jailed for year

A ROGUE stock market trader has been jailed for 12 months for insider trading in the shares of a Scottish energy firm and a North Sea oil producer.

Mark Lyttleton, 45, a former equity portfolio manager at the BlackRock investment firm, placed trades in Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy and EnCore Oil using inside information.

The offences were committed between October and December 2011, a period when new oil finds were being announced in the North Sea.

Cairn said in November of that year it had found oil in two places in a well operated by Premier Oil containing 30 million barrels. Premier had the previous month bought EnCore for £220 million.

Lyttleton, of London, used his information to snap up shares a short time before any public announcement was made about the stocks.

He has also been ordered to pay £149,861 plus costs by Judge Andrew Goymer at Southwark Crown Court, who said it was premeditated and “blatantly dishonest,” adding he “knew full well what he was doing”.