He is the kind of trader who gives insider dealing a bad name. And the worst of it was that Sean Pignatelli at Credit Suisse found himself dismissed with a £20,000 fine for it.

Eighteen months ago Mr Pignatelli had several conversations with his clients about a piece of sensitive information — that saw four of his hedge fund clients sell ahead of an expected negative announcement.

A good way of getting in with your clients, you might think. Except that the information wasn’t inside or price sensitive and was widely known in the market already. So his clients sold Boston Scientific stock for nothing.

The bank dismissed him, not for insider dealing but for failing to tell its compliance department that he had an e-mail that could contain inside information — and yesterday the Financial Services Authority (FSA) fined him £20,000.

Yesterday, as the regulator reproduced transcripts of his telephone conversation, the entire City could see his breathy excitement about relaying information to his clients that most of the market already knew. To one client: “This is from his BlackBerry. Just got it. Sounds like they are going to bring down ’05 guidance . . . I can’t see that being good news. I’ll leave you with that. Cheers, man.” To another: “Don’t want to get into trouble, keep between us for now (laughs).”

In May 2005, an analyst e-mailed Mr Pignatelli about a meeting the analyst had had with the chief executive of Boston Scientific in Paris. The analyst understood that the company planned to lower earnings guidance the next day. The clients all traded in the shares of the company, either directly or through derivatives.

According to the FSA, the e-mail was worded in such a way as to appear that it might have contained inside information about the prospects for Boston Scientific Corporation.

The fine is the first imposed by the FSA for failure to exercise due skill, care and diligence, and to observe proper standards of market conduct.

Credit Suisse immediately reported the incident to the FSA and Mr Pignatelli was suspended, investigated and dismissed in 2005. The e-mail received by Mr Pignatelli included phrases such as: “quick heads-up ahead of tomorrow’s analyst meeting”, that the author of the e-mail had “just sat down with” Boston Scientific’s chief executive and “keep btwn us for now”.

The salesman, however, chose to ignore the warning signals and passed on the information in such a way that gave the impression it contained inside information.

In his defence, Mr Pignatelli said that the way that he relayed the e-mail’s contents was just “sales patter”.

He told the FSA: “I just go into sort of sales mode, you know, try and make the call look as proprietary as possible. It’s just what I do.”

Sally Dewar, the FSA director of markets, said: “We are grateful to the firm [Credit Suisse] for bringing this case to our attention, having detected it through its usual compliance procedures.”

The FSA said it had taken into account the fact that Mr Pignatelli did not have a “positive belief” that the information he had received was inside information. He co-operated with the regulator and agreed to settle the matter, which entitled him to a 20 per cent discount on his fine. Credit Suisse declined to comment.

Ms Dewar said that when sales people received material that appeared to contain inside information, they should stop and think before passing it on and, where appropriate, discuss it with their senior manager or compliance officers.

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