JULY 25, 2008

Muller gets into trouble

Victor Muller, once the boss of the Spyker F1 team, has been fined $150,000 for insider trading when he was in charge of the team. The case relates to a bank loan that Muller had negotiated, using Spyker shares as the collateral. In June 2007 the bank threatened to sell the shares because the loan was not being repaid. He sent the bank a press release that was being planned that he indicated would push up the value of the company. The bank recognised that this was not acceptable behaviour under the rules of the Dutch stock market and reported the disclosure to the Autoriteit Financiele Markten, the market regulatory body. The AFM called the case "a very serious violation". The rules of the market are that all information must be made public at the same time and not given to anyone in advance.