Former Lazard banker found guilty of insider trading by German court

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -A former employee of investment bank Lazard was sentenced on Friday to an 18-month suspended jail term by a German court after being found guilty of insider trading, a court spokesperson said.

The ruling by the Frankfurt regional court came after the ex-employee was charged in 2021 for passing on tips about upcoming takeovers of listed firms to the former head of an insurance company for almost two years.

Between April 2018 and early 2020 the former insurance employee used the information to buy shares and derivatives in the affected firms before the deals became public and their shares rose.

The recipient of the tips on Friday separately received a harsher sentence of three years and eight months, according to BaFin, Germany’s market regulator, which had reported the individual to prosecutors and aided them in court proceedings.

The former banker received 100,000 euros ($113,650) for passing on the tips, the indictment showed.

A spokesperson for Lazard in Germany was not immediately available for comment.

($1 = 0.8799 euros)

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; additional reporting by Tom Sims; editing by Jason Neely and Susan Fenton)