FCA fines and bans former Aviva analyst over 'cherry picking'

The financial regulator fined Mothahir Miah £139,000 and banned him from performing any function relating to regulated activity in the financial services industry.

Between January 2010 and October 2012, Miah, who had authority to trade on behalf of hedge and long-only funds, exploited weaknesses in the trading systems and controls at Aviva Investors in order to delay the booking and allocation of trades.

This meant he 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 – a practice known as ‘cherry picking’.

Miah had agreed to settle at an early stage of the FCA’s investigation so he qualified for a 30% discount.

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.”