Body Shop techie is fined £85,000 for insider trade

An IT technician employed by Body Shop who was found to have hacked into his bosses' computers and shorted the retailer's shares ahead of a shock profits warning was today fined £85,000 by the Financial Services Authority.

Spread-betting firm IG Index blew the whistle on John Shevlin, who made a profit of more than £38,000 after buying contracts for difference to bet on the share price dropping just hours before the profit warning in January 2006.

Shevlin borrowed £29,000, which was more than his annual salary, to put the bet on the equivalent of £213,000 worth of shares. He placed it just after 4pm on 10 January. Body Shop had been due to update on Christmas trading on 13 January but as its directors became aware that the trading statement would in fact become a profits warning, they rushed the announcement forward to 11 January. Shevlin closed his position on the same day.

Up until his hugely successful insider bet, Shevlin's record in spread betting had been patchy. His punts were usually worth hundreds rather than thousands of pounds, and the vast majority were up bets rather than short positions.

Margaret Cole, director of enforcement at the FSA, said: "Mr Shevlin deliberately set out to obtain highly sensitive and valuable information to which he was not entitled. He abused the trust based in him by his employers and misused his technical skills to gain financial advantage over other market users."

Shevlin, who no longer works for Body Shop, denied the FSA's case that he had dealt on inside information, claiming he made the bet based on his own research including a day's work at the Brighton store. But the FSA said there was enough circumstantial-evidence, including the fact Shevlin had senior executives' passwords allowing him to log on as them to read confidential emails.

He has two weeks in which to pay the fine. Shevlin's case came up under earlier FSA rules on market abuse. Today, such a case would almost certainly end up as criminal proceedings. The fine comes just weeks after the FSA announced a much tougher regime on rogue traders.