Bans on Brandeis former senior manager and traders

Colin Gamwells, past Director and Head of Dealing of Brandeis (Brokers) Ltd, a Ring dealing member of the London Metal Exchange (LME) expelled by the Securities and Futures Authority (SFA) in 2001, and three traders at the firm have been found not fit and proper by the FSA and banned from the industry. Mr Gamwells, who was in charge of Brandeis’ trading with and for customers was found in 1996-7 to have known and allowed mispricing of copper orders from Herbert Black and his associated companies (Black Customers), and the premeditated misuse of confidential information connected with those orders. He also took part in mispricing of Black Customers’ orders and disclosed confidential information about orders from the same clients to proprietary traders or used it to trade ahead himself. GBG01007, in his capacity as Brandeis’ copper dealer, in the same period set out to misprice Black Customers’ orders; he purposely revealed information about their orders to the firm’s proprietary traders and to other parties; and traded ahead to the advantage of Brandeis and third parties over Black Customers. Mr A and Mr B, proprietary traders at Brandeis set out to acquire confidential information on Black Customers’ orders on which they traded ahead for their proprietary trading books and, in the case of Mr A, to the gain of a third party. They also passed on information about Black Customers’ orders to third parties and Mr B relayed it to other Brandeis traders. The firm was found to have failed to operate effective supervision of staff and to have lacked clear compliance procedures, including suitable Chinese Walls and proper record keeping. The FSA accepts that the former CEO and Compliance Officer acted promptly to bring the allegations to the SFA’s attention and has agreed that they will not perform a management or compliance function that requires FSA approval in future.