Read the full complaint from the SEC

A public relations executive in New York has said that she is "devastated" after her husband was charged with secretly passing information on her clients to an insider trading ring that made profits of $4.8 million (£3.19 million).

Nina Devlin, a partner in the New York office of Brunswick, was referred to as the "golden goose" by her husband, Matthew, a former broker with Lehman Brothers, who received a Cartier watch, a widescreen TV and Porsche driving lessons after giving inside information to friends and business associates.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed insider trading charges against Mr Devlin and other alleged members of the ring, claiming it used information garnered from the broker's wife to buy and sell shares over a four-year period up to July this year

Mr Devlin, 35, has pleaded guilty to the charges.

The charges claim that Mr Devlin, now working at Barclays Wealth following the break-up of Lehman, "misappropriated confidential and non-public information about corporate transactions" from his wife, whom he married in 2003.

Mr Devlin is alleged to have gathered information by secretly listening to his wife's phone calls and interpreting her travel schedules.

Barclays Wealth said it had suspended Mr Devlin and, with Lehman, had "co-operated fully with law enforcement authorities to assist them in their investigation into this alleged insider trading ring".

Brunswick said that while Mr Devlin had pleaded guilty to the charges, his wife had "not been charged or implicated in any way".

It added: "We believe she was unaware of her husband's activities and is devastated." It said the firm has "always been totally committed to protecting the confidentiality of our clients".

A lawyer for Mrs Devlin said: "She was completely unaware that confidential information about her job was being used as the basis for securities trading."

The 13 transactions cited, in which Brunswick clients were involved, include the recent $52 billion takeover of Anheuser-Busch, the brewer of Budweiser, by InBev, a deal that was widely rumoured for several months before any announcement.

The complaint says that Mrs Devlin's firm was retained by InBev ahead of a meeting between the two companies on June 2, and by June 10 her husband had "misappropriated from his wife non-public information concerning InBev's forthcoming tender offer for Anheuser-Busch". The next day InBev announced a bid.

The SEC complaint says: "At the time that Devlin tipped the other defendants about these companies, each company was confidentially engaged in a significant transaction that involved a merger, tender offer or stock repurchase."

The other defendants include business partners, clients and friends of Mr Devlin. The US Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, which worked with the FBI on the investigation, has filed criminal charges against some of the defendants named by the SEC.

Four of the men allegedly involved in the ring — traders Jamil Bouchareb and Daniel Corbin, tax lawyer Eric Holzer and Frederick Bowers, a Lehmans broker — have been arrested by the FBI and charged with conspiracy and securities fraud.

On one occasion, dating back to 2005, Mr Bouchareb, who acknowledged Mr Devlin as his source, urged him: "We need the goose to pop its head and show us the biz".

On another occasion, Mr Bouchareb is also alleged to have asked Mr Devlin: "Did the golden goose recover from the bird flu yet?"

The SEC also said that in January 2006, Mr Devlin wrote to Mr Bouchareb, stating that Mr Bouchareb's girlfriend "may be amazing @ somethings — but none of them are like the golden goose".

Mr Bouchareb, who denies the charges, is said to have rewarded Mr Devlin for the tips by providing him with gifts including a Barneys New York gift card, a Ralph Lauren leather jacket and a course at a Porsche driving school.

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