Konstantin Vishnyak found not guilty after jurors deliberated for just over 3 hours
Konstantin Vishnyak, a former VTB Capital Plc banker who deleted his Whatsapp messages “under the noses of the police”, was acquitted by a London jury, dealing a heavy blow to the Financial Conduct Authority’s insider trading prosecution .
Vishnyak was found not guilty after jurors deliberated for just over 3 hours and was promptly released by the judge. FCA prosecutors alleged that the 42-year-old banker withdrew the request knowing it may be relevant to an insider trading investigation.
But Vishnyak insisted he deleted the posts because he feared he would be drawn into a “political scandal” if his connections to a Russian suspect in a British murder investigation were known.
The verdict leaves the FCA empty-handed. As the agency dropped the insider trading investigation against Vishnyak and two other suspects, it pursued the lesser charge of deleting the texts, a first for it.
In a statement, the FCA said it was “disappointed with the outcome, but respects the verdict. We will take action whenever evidence we need is tampered with or destroyed.”
The former banker was arrested in September 2018 at his home by authorities wary of his operations in six companies that were the subject of takeover bids. Vishnyak managed to remove the Whatsapp app from his bedroom before handing the second of his two iPhones to a police officer.
“You are removing Whatsapp from under the noses of the police. You throw the FCA out of the smell during the interview,” Rachel Barnes, the agency’s lawyer, said during questioning. “It’s taking a risk, isn’t it?”
More embarrassing
Vishnyak’s lawyer told the jury that the content of the messages was “much more embarrassing.”
The talks contained correspondence with Andrei Lugovoi, a politician wanted by British cops for poisoning former Russian security officer Alexander Litvinenko, who was given a fatal dose of radioactive polonium in his tea at a restaurant in London in 2006.
When questioned, Vishnyak said he feared he and his family would be put on a watch list and his house wiretapped. He feared becoming a “bargaining chip” in the context of deteriorating relations between Russia and the United Kingdom.
“British juries do not deal with their cases on suspicion,” said Henry Milner, a lawyer for Vishnyak. “My client’s case was that his deletions were private matters, nothing to do with shares or insider trading, and the prosecution was unable to prove otherwise.”
VTB, after the ruling, stressed that “FCA confirmed” that the Vishnyak investigation had nothing to do with the Russian bank.
Vishynak was believed to have exchanged tips he received from a ring of friends in Moscow, including the best man at his wedding. Vishnyak, who by that time had left VTB, made around 3.78 million pounds ($ 4.83 million) trading the six stocks in question, the FCA said.
In its insider trading case, the FCA focused only on the six out of about 100 stocks that Vishnyak had traded, his lawyer Patrick Gibbs said.
A tip from the Moscow group came during a ski trip to Italy, Vishnyak said in an interview with FCA. Vishnyak bought a share after one of the people “started talking about information he had received”.
The next day there was a buyout announcement, he said.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
