Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
A former Goldman Sachs analyst on trial for insider dealing lied to investigators when he was arrested and thought he could “talk his way out of it”, the prosecution told the jury as his trial draws to a close.
Mohammed Zina, 35, declined legal representation in his first interview with the UK Financial Conduct Authority on the day of his arrest in December 2017, Peter Carter KC said in his closing speech for the prosecution at London’s Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday.
“Is it perhaps an indication that Mohammed Zina thought he could talk his way out of it?” Carter told the jury.
The jury was shown extracts from the interview in which Zina told FCA investigators he was “always worried” he did not have permission from Goldman to trade, but he was concerned that if the investment bank refused him permission it would have meant he “wouldn’t be able to fulfil my passion”, he said at the time.
“I was always sort of worried. I was always worried about it,” Zina said in the interview. “I just felt like if I told them, they would just restrict me.”
The trial, which started in November and is being prosecuted by the FCA, originally included Mohammed Zina’s brother, Suhail Zina, 36, who is a former Clifford Chance lawyer. The pair were charged with six counts of insider dealing between July 2016 and December 2017, as well as three counts of fraud related to loans obtained from Tesco Bank to fund the trading.
However, the judge directed the jury to acquit Suhail Zina on all counts on Friday, after ruling there was no case for him to answer.
Carter rebutted Mohammed Zina’s defence that he did not know he had inside information at Goldman, pointing to compliance training and witness accounts about the so-called material non-public information the bank held.
“He was an intelligent man, he knew what the job involved,” Carter said.
Brendan Kelly KC, acting for Mohammed Zina, responded in his closing speech with criticisms of the prosecution’s witnesses, questioning the evidence that his client knew he held inside information.
Kelly told the jury that one of the witnesses for the prosecution, Fergal O’Driscoll, head of Emea conflicts and reputational risk at Goldman, was interviewed by police for possible contempt of court after speaking to another witness. O’Driscoll was found not to be in contempt, Kelly said.
“There are rules in this building, there are rules in this court, and again and again we saw them broken,” Kelly told the jury.
“The real issue here is did [Mohammed Zina] know, did he know that the information that he had is inside information?” Kelly said. “The evidence on knowledge is as clear as mud.”
Prior to the closing statements, the jury heard from character witnesses for Mohammed Zina on Tuesday about how he and Suhail Zina were respected in their community and had both achieved successful careers, despite a challenging upbringing.
Even after he started working for Goldman in 2014, Mohammed Zina still worked at Sainsbury’s supermarket at the weekends for a while because “he missed working with ordinary people”, a school friend said in a witness statement read out to the court.
