FSA fines ex Sibir chief for market abuse
A DAMAGING corporate ruse was finally rumbled yesterday after the City regulator slapped a £350,000 fine on Henry Cameron, the former chief executive of oil company Sibir Energy.
Last year, Sibir was embroiled in controversy over debts owed to the company by Russian tycoon Chalva Tchigirinski, one of its major shareholders. Sibir informed the market on two separate occasions that it had advanced $115m (£76bn) as partial payment for real estate assets it had purchased from Tchigirinski, though the company later reported that the true amount was almost triple that amount at around $325m. The company’s shares were later suspended from trading on the Alternative Investment Market and were ultimately cancelled in August 2009.
Cameron was suspended by Sibir in February last year and officially dismissed two months later, when the company launched High Court proceedings against him and Tchigirinski to recoup the money from the controversial property deals. At the time, Sibir said it had informed the Financial Services Authority that it believed its shares had been manipulated during a two-week period the previous October.
The FSA yesterday ruled that Cameron was “directly responsible for this market abuse” in his position as Sibir’s chief executive. The regulator said the company had given incorrect figures to the market regarding the payments, which amounted to unsecured loans.
Cameron’s fine included a 30 per cent settlement discount, without which he would have
been ordered to pay £500,000.
Sibir has since been bought out by oil giant Gazpromneft. Tchigirinsky, who was ranked 44th on the 2008 Forbes list of Russia’s richest men, has had to dispose of his property assets to pay down his debts to Sibir, including Hugh House in Eaton Square, Belgravia.