Martin Currie fined £8.6m in US and UK
REGULATORS in Britain and the US have slapped fines worth £8.6m on asset manager Martin Currie for the way it handled a conflict of interest.
The Financial Services Authority handed Currie a £3.5m penalty, its largest ever in a conflict of interest case, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission dished out a £5.1m fine after the firm came forward about the deal managed from its Shanghai office.
Currie wrongly advised a US publicly traded fund client to invest £15m in an unlisted bond which rescued a second hedge fund client with liquidity difficulties.
The Edinburgh firm received a 30 per cent discount on the FSA fine after settling early.
The manager judged responsible for the April 2009 trade has since left the firm, sources said.
Martin Currie said it had reported the case to the FSA, fully co-operated with the investigation and compensated the client for its losses.