Ex-UBS inside trader gets stiff sentence

A former institutional client manager in UBS equity research department, was sentenced Monday to 78 months in jail after pleading guilty in an insider trading case that involved a ring of financial professionals who profited from nonpublic information from Morgan Stanley and UBS.

Mitchell S. Guttenberg, a former institutional client manager in UBS AG’s equity research department, was sentenced Monday to 78 months in jail after pleading guilty in an insider trading case that involved a ring of financial professionals who profited from nonpublic information from Morgan Stanley and UBS.
He was sentenced in New York on four counts of securities fraud and was ordered to forfeit $15.8 million, reflecting the proceeds of the insider trading scheme that he orchestrated between 2001 and 2006.
Mr. Guttenberg, a former member of the investment review committee at UBS, pleaded guilty in February to four counts of securities fraud, one count of conspiracy and another securities-fraud count.
He is one of the 13 people from such firms as Bank of America Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., and Morgan Stanley and The Bear Stearns Cos. Inc., both of New York, who were charged last year in the insider trading ring.
The ring was accused of using inside information from Zurich, Switzerland-based UBS to make illegal trades ahead of public announcements of stock recommendations by UBS analysts where Morgan Stanley acted as an adviser.