Tabernula case jury told no unanimous verdicts needed
The jury members on a long-running insider trading case were told late last week that they need not reach their verdicts unanimously.
The jury on the case, nicknamed Tabernula after the Financial Services Authority and Serious Organised Crime Agency operation which prompted it, has been told that it may give its verdicts with 11 to one or 10 to two majorities.
Accountant Andrew Hind, former Panmure Gordon stockbroker Andrew Grant Harrison, private day trader Benjamin Anderson, former managing director at Deutsche Bank Martyn Dodgson, and former Aria Capital director Iraj Parvizi have been charged with conspiracy to insider trade on various occasions between 2006 and 2010.
The Financial Conduct Authority, which is the prosecutor for the case, accuses Dodgson and Harrison of passing price-sensitive information obtained from their jobs to Hind, who then in turn passed it to Anderson and Parvizi.
The jury was originally retired to consider its verdict on 25 April, after the trial started in January.
The case has suffered several years of delays in coming to court, in part because government's legal aid cuts caused some of the defendants to lose their legal counsel.