Businessman Harold Shand found guilty of corruption, Insider trader gets jail

Former Queensland mining executive and millionaire Harold Shand has been found guilty of corruption after being convicted of making a $60,000 payment to disgraced former State Government minister Gordon Nuttall.

Shand, who is expected to be sentenced today, was accused of paying Nuttall the secret commission in order to get the former industrial relations minster to further the interests of mining company Capregin.

Shand was the chief executive of the company and one of four shareholders.

Nuttall is currently serving 12 years in jail after being found guilty last year in two unrelated trials of receiving corrupt payments from businessmen.

Shand’s lawyers had attempted to argue that his boss, rich list member Jim Gorman, who has a net worth of more than $200 million, ordered the payment to be made to Nuttall. Gorman told the court this was not the case.

The Crown has asked for a sentence of between nine months and five years for Shand.

Meanwhile, former Macquarie Bank trader Oswyn de Silva was yesterday sentenced to two and a half years jail time for insider trading.

The Malaysian-born trader was found guilty of “front running”, whereby a perpetrator with inside information personally buys stocks before buying stocks for his business.

De Silva admitted buying contracts for difference in stocks that he was about to buy at his Macquarie Bank job, using his personal trading account at Singapore broker Phillip Securities.

De Silva made $1.4 million from his trades, which occurred between December 2006 and April 2007, although he later deliberately lost those profits due to feelings of guilt.

De Silva’s offences occurred soon after he learned that he was HIV positive, although NSW Supreme Court judge Justice Terence Buddin said this could not be used an excuse.

”The fact remains that the offender sought to act as he did in order to enrich himself.”

De Silva will serve a minimum of 18 months in prison.