Curtis jailed for insider trading

High-society white collar criminal Oliver Peter Curtis will spend a year in jail for insider trading that netted him more than $1.4 million when he was 21 years old.

The husband of Sydney publicist Roxy Jacenko was sentenced this morning in the NSW Supreme Court.

Australian Securities and Investments Commission chairman Greg Medcraft said the one-year jail term reinforced the watchdog's commitment to pursuing such cases.

Curtis, was sentenced to two years' jail, to be released on recognisance after one year.

"Asic appreciates the hard work done by the CDPP and our strong working relationship was critical in bringing the case to this point," Mr Medcraft said.

The conspiracy involved an agreement between Mr Curtis and his former best friend John Hartman, that Mr Hartman would procure Mr Curtis to trade in Contracts for Difference (‘CFDs’) (a financial product), when  Mr Hartman held inside information about the trading intentions of his employer Orion Asset Management.

Mr Hartman agreed to provide Mr Curtis with instructions (informed by the inside information Hartman held) to engage in CFD trading that the pair expected to be profitable. 

They further agreed that the instructions would be provided by way of the Blackberry to Blackberry communication system known as ‘pinning’.

It was alleged that on 45 occasions Mr Curtis traded in CFDs after he received instructions from Mr Hartman.  The 45 sets of trades occurred at around the same time as Orion’s trading in the underlying stock. 

In return for providing trading instructions, Mr Curtis provided Mr Hartman with a share of the profits in the form of cash and by using the funds to purchase items for Mr Hartman.

Asic launched its investigation in 2009 and their conspiracy was exposed when Mr Hartman confessed his crime to the watchdog.