FCA fines and bans former Aviva Investors analyst

At Aviva Investors, Mr Miah had authority to trade on behalf of hedge and long-only funds. Between January 2010 and October 2012, Mr Miah exploited weaknesses in the trading systems and controls at Aviva Investors in order to delay the booking and allocation of trades in a practice known as “cherry picking”.

This meant Mr Miah was able to assess the performance of a trade during the day and allocate trades which had benefitted from favourable price movements to hedge funds that paid performance fees and trades that had not benefited to certain long-only funds that paid lower or no performance fees.

Mr Miah’s actions contributed to Aviva Investors having to pay significant compensation to a number of long-only funds. The FCA fined Aviva Investors £17.6 million in relation to its failings on 24 February 2015.

The FCA reports that Mr Miah knew that cherry picking was wrong, but was motivated by a desire to prove his trading ability to his colleagues and increase his prospects of being promoted.

His early admissions and expression of remorse mean that the FCA will consider revoking Mr Miah’s ban after five years.

Mark Steward, Director of Enforcement at the FCA, said:

"Mr Miah abused the trust given to him by his clients in a very clear and deliberate way. It is vital that Approved Persons operate with honesty and integrity at all times. Mr Miah did not.

"We have taken into account that Mr Miah admitted his misconduct at a very early stage to both Aviva Investors and the FCA and showed remorse for his actions."