27 July 2012 Last updated at 08:19 ET

Six jailed for insider dealing

The case was the Financial Services Authority's longest and most complex prosecution to date

Six men have been sent to prison for a total of 16 years for insider dealing, with the judge describing their actions as "deliberate, planned and dishonest".

The six were convicted on Monday in a case brought by the financial watchdog.

They obtained information from the London printers of Swiss bank UBS and UK brokerage JP Morgan Cazenove on takeovers by firms such as Reuters.

They then used the confidential data to place spread bets which generated £732,000 ($1.1m) between 2006 and 2008.

Ali Mustafa, Pardip Saini and Paresh Shah were each sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

Neten Shah was sentenced to 18 months, while Bijal Shah and Truptesh Patel were sent down for two years each.

The six men had been convicted of offences relating to the obtaining and trading on information on six companies: Reuters, Vega Group, Premier Oil, Thus and Enodis.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) had combed through hundreds of trading accounts and telephone records, to build up a detailed picture or the insider dealing ring.

In passing sentence, Judge Jeffrey Pegden at Southwark Crown Court in London told the men, "You knew precisely what you were doing."

He added that they had betrayed the principles of confidentiality and trust that are essential to the operation of the commercial world.