Businessman Philip Lynch sanctioned for insider trading

The Chief Justice of the High Court has upheld a series of sanctions against the former CEO of several companies known for insider trading.

Philip Lynch, former Chairman of An Post, One51 and IAWS, is the first person in Ireland found to have been involved in insider trading.

A panel of advisers set up by the Central Bank recommended earlier this year that Mr Lynch be fined €75,000, barred from participating in a regulated financial services company for five years, publicly reprimanded and pay €37,500 in costs. from the bank.

The panel was established in 2013 under the EU Market Abuse Regulations 2005. Last January, it recommended sanctions after finding that Lynch had breached the regulations by using inside information to acquire 200,000 C&C shares for his account. approved retirement fund.

On Monday, Judge Mary Irvine upheld the penalties after being told Lynch did not object to the request.

Remy Farrell SC of the Central Bank said this was the first such application under the relevant regulation. The regulations provided that the bank could apply to the court for confirmation of the sanctions if there had been no appeal against the determination, as was the case in this case, he said.

The request was based on an affidavit from Louise Gallagher, head of the central bank’s enforcement investigations division, who said that following a substantive hearing before the panel of advisers in September last year, they found it had been proven beyond beyond reasonable doubt that Mr. Lynch was in possession of “inside information” when he purchased the 200,000 shares on October 21, 2008.

The court heard that Mr. Lynch’s disqualification will take place from the date of the court order.

Marcus Dowling SC, for Mr. Lynch, said the adviser recorded that this was an outlier of insider trading in that it was not done for his client to make an immediate profit and he had to hold the stock for a year. However, the point was that if there was any ambiguity, Lynch “should have been more cautious and not tried [in the shares]”.

Ms. Justice Irvine said that she had read the documents and that the bank was entitled to the orders requested based on the evidence presented.

He did not order the costs of the hearing, which means that both parties pay their own costs.