SFA takes action against trading cheats and fare dodger: Regulator hands out fines of up to pounds 15,000 and removes two from register

THE SECURITIES and Futures Authority, the regulator for the securities industry, has taken disciplinary action against six people for offences ranging from concealing trading losses to fare-dodging on British Rail.

Two have been removed from the SFA register and four fined. All lost their jobs.

The cases, which are not connected with each other, bring to 22 the SFA's total of disciplinary actions against individual members this year. The authority said it did not consider them to be the most serious offences.

One of the six, James Cesareo, was struck off the register after a criminal conviction for borrowing a friend's British Rail season ticket and copying it. He used the forgery for several months.

The SFA said it investigated anyone convicted of an offence involving money as its members invested clients' money every day. A spokesman said: 'If we are not happy that a person is honest we don't want them in the industry at all.'

A second person, Jolyon Money, was refused admission to the SFA for claiming to hold a US qualification for which he had not passed the examination and for giving inaccurate details about his work experience. The authority fined him pounds 3,000.

Simon Farquharson, a former Credit Lyonnais Securities equities dealer, was reprimanded and fined pounds 15,000 for accepting two cash payments adding up to pounds 30,000 from a client.

Paul Yates, who worked on the European equities desk at Salomon Brothers, disobeyed instructions from his managing director in dealing in Dutch stocks and tried to conceal the trades and losses. He was fined pounds 10,000.

William Grant was discovered by his employer, UBS, concealing losses by reporting false positions and valuations. He also admitted lying to the firm in the course of its investigation. The SFA fined him pounds 5,000.

Michael Harris, a salesman for James Capel, was reprimanded for taking up surplus shares in a new issue for himself without making sufficient attempts to offer them to clients. He also had to resit his Regulation and Compliance examination and another Securities Institute exam - and has passed.

The SFA said disciplinary actions of this kind were usually triggered by a member firm reporting the breach of SFA principles or filing a return to the authority on dismissing an employee.